Mishandled firearms, damaged aircraft and unbalanced plane loads are some of the issues occurring at airports around the country due to poor training and understaffing at one of the world’s biggest ground handlers, according to its own staff.
Swissport services Qantas and a number of other airlines, including Virgin Australia and Singapore Airlines, which fly in and out of Australia daily. It takes care of services “under the wing” including aircraft refuelling, baggage handling, water and ground power.
Qantas has complained to Swissport on multiple occasions this month after incidents ranging from damaged aircraft to unbalanced plane loads. Credit: AP
Internal incident reports reveal employees at the ground handler are committing more than one error a day on Qantas international flights, ranging from mishandled bags to losing the wheelchairs of Australia’s Paralympians and damaging the airline’s wide-body aircraft.
Senior staff speaking to this masthead on the condition of anonymity, because they were not authorised to speak publicly, said they were concerned about a lack of training within the ground handling provider and feared a serious safety incident could occur if standards were not lifted.
In March, three firearms that were supposed to travel from Melbourne to Sydney were lost by Swissport. Qantas discovered the guns were not loaded onto the aircraft despite being tagged as such and was then forced to rush them onto two separate flights so they could meet a connecting flight with their registered owner. Qantas has since undertaken a review of its firearm procedures to avoid any further mishandling of firearms.
At least 15 incidents have been flagged with Swissport duty managers by Qantas this month, with the carrier demanding improvements on multiple occasions, according to internal emails seen by this masthead.
On one occasion two weeks ago, a Qantas engineer discovered an engine of one of the airline’s Boeing 737s had been dented by a ramp. The carrier had not been notified of the incident until the engineer found the damage, a contravention of Swissport’s incident protocols. Two of Qantas’ wide-body aircraft have been damaged by Swissport over the past three months.
This month Qantas has lodged multiple incident reports pertaining to poorly loaded aircraft and loose freight, which unbalances an aircraft and can cause nose or tail heaviness midair if not corrected. Every flight carries a mix of freight, which can range from standard packages to more sensitive items such as biomedical supplies.
One incident report reveals flammable materials were haphazardly loaded onto an aircraft, threatening its balance and causing a fire hazard. Others refer to cargo hold doors being left open and freight being left on an aircraft for more than a day after it was supposed to have been unloaded.
Multiple bags have been sent to the wrong international location or not loaded onto an aircraft at all every week over the past three months due to Swissport employees misreading bag tags.
Bags have been sent to the wrong international location or not loaded onto an aircraft at all every week over the past three months.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer
A Qantas spokesperson said its average mishandled baggage rate had sat at 4.6 in every 1000 bags for the past three months. This is substantially lower than during the same period in 2023.
“We are concerned whenever customers’ baggage does not arrive when it should, but misplaced baggage levels have improved significantly over the past couple of years and are now below what they were pre-COVID.”
On June 10, a Swissport tug driver damaged a critical aircraft guidance system at Melbourne Airport with a ramp.
A day later, six members of the Australian men’s Paralympic basketball team travelled from Dallas to Melbourne Airport but were unable to disembark the aircraft in their own wheelchairs as the chairs could not be found. They instead had to use the airline’s aisle chairs.
“As you can imagine, the customers were very unhappy as their own chairs give them the independence to do things such as go to the bathroom ... and they were also stressing as they had a tight connection to Perth that they needed to make,” an excerpt from Qantas’ complaint to Swissport reads.
A Swissport spokesperson said strict safety and service standards were paramount but did not respond to specific questions regarding the individual incidents in this article.
“We take any incidents that contravene these standards seriously and have procedures in place to thoroughly investigate them,” Swissport said. “Our top priority is the safety and wellbeing of our people, and we are committed to providing them with the support they need to excel in their roles.”
Swissport was first accused of chronic understaffing by the Transport Workers Union in 2022 after internal staff memos revealed plane load imbalances, cargo doors left open and firearms loaded onto carousels.
At the time, Swissport said the company had one of the highest safety standards in the industry, and the issues were “far from normal”.
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