„Good afternoon, We’re sorry for the delay“. This is a sentence that has been constantly uttered by Air Serbia call center employees for the past ten days, at least to those who managed to get hold of it, as well as those who respond to passenger complaints via social networks.
The cancellations of Air Serbia flights that took place on June 18, continued with numerous delays, a mountain of lost luggage, long lines in front of the counter at the Belgrade airport in the following days and very dissatisfied passengers who claim that they were left without any information.
In the meantime, the game of who to blame continues, and it seems that the Belgrade airport company, that is, the French company Vanci, which manages the Nikola Tesla airport, has been chosen as the culprit.
Yesterday, on Tuesday the situation seems to have normalized, at one point the board at the airport showed that all flights leave on time.
Also, a meeting was held yesterday between the Minister of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure, Goran Vesić, with representatives of Vansi and Air Serbia, at which, according to the minister’s statement, it was agreed that the company should increase the salaries of employees working on sorting and transporting luggage, who are about 100 less than necessary for the smooth functioning of the airport.
“The Vansi company promised at the meeting that employees in the sorting plant, with increases and bonuses, will be able to earn up to 117,000 dinars, or up to 1,000 euros, during the season. Until now, the net salary for this job was about 60,000 dinars. The company will re-invite all those who have certificates to make up for the shortage of people as soon as possible. Also, the company announced a welcome bonus of 60,000 dinars for three months for each new employee,” said Vesić.
Due to the countless complaints of passengers against the national airline, which makes more than half of the flights at Nikola Tesla Airport, the public fired at Air Serbia, and Vesić reflected on that.
“I have to point out that replacing the thesis that Air Serbia’s plans led to problems at the airport itself, because the Vansi company knew about the increase in the number of flights by both domestic and foreign airlines.
Air Serbia had problems on June 17 and 18, which have been overcome, so everyone who bought tickets for flights of the national airline company should not worry, because they will be able to use them without any problems”, he noted and at the same time told the representatives of the Vansi company that “all passengers, as well as all employees, must be treated as in all other countries”.
Five days ago, when the luggage X-ray device broke down, which caused a large number of flights to be delayed, Air Serbia also issued an unusually harsh statement accusing Belgrade Airport of problems with the flights.
“There is a whole series of problems that Air Serbia has been dealing with on a daily basis for weeks at the Belgrade airport, which have very serious consequences for the regularity of traffic and which only deepen every day. In recent days, the situation at the airport is getting more and more out of control.
This does not mean only delays and cancellations due to the failure of the X-ray device for baggage control on Thursday, June 22. That was just one incident, and the problem of the functioning of airport services is much bigger than that and is of a chronic nature. The passenger acceptance process is extremely slow. Agents at passenger check-in desks are undertrained and the process takes longer than standard.
The luggage line stops very often, and as a result long queues are created at the passenger check-in counters. As a result, flights close late for departure and are delayed, passengers rightly complain, and luggage often lags behind at the airport and has to be sent to passengers later.
The so-called “drop off” counters for handing in luggage of already checked passengers are also often not in operation. The staff for loading the luggage onto the plane is very often late and there are not enough people. In the evenings, there is a lack of employees in all support services, agents at the boarding gates often have to wait.
Problems exist even on incoming flights, when passengers often have to wait for their luggage longer than the duration of their flight, due to the insufficient number of employees at the baggage drop-off and in the sorting room. When it comes to left luggage, it accumulates at a high speed, it is impossible to get feedback on the status of the luggage, and the existing employees do not even manage to list it, let alone send it to the passengers. It is obvious that there are problems with the equipment and infrastructure, as well as that there is a lack of trained people at every step in the chain”, Air Serbia was harsh.
When asked by Danas to comment on Air Serbia’s announcement, Belgrade Airport replied that it regularly monitors the development of air traffic.
“We started recruiting additional personnel for this season on time, at the beginning of the year. For the needs of the summer season, around 300 colleagues were additionally hired to support passengers and flights, with the intention of increasing that number by the end of the season, as more than 100 people are in the process of being hired.
Please note that, as in other industries and in the aviation industry, there is a turnover of people in operational services, so the airport is constantly recruiting new staff. In this period, competitions were opened for the most part for operational positions: loading/unloading cargo, ground stewardesses, aircraft cleaning, etc.,” the operator of the Belgrade airport said, adding that at the moment more than 100 people are in the process of being hired.
“We note that the salary is competitive, above the market average for this profile and that a seasonal bonus is provided, and overtime is paid more than the sum prescribed by law,” they add.
They also point out that all counters for receiving passengers and luggage at the Belgrade airport are available at full capacity.
“Given the fact that we record the highest traffic in the history of the airport during this period of full season, the presence of a large number of planes at the same time, and therefore passengers, takes place in the peak season.”
“At the beginning of the summer season, from year to year it happens that a certain amount of luggage for passengers arriving at Nikola Tesla Airport from different airports is delayed. Baggage that arrives on flights with passengers is regularly picked up, while due to increased traffic at airports in Europe, and therefore also at airports from where planes fly to Belgrade, part of the luggage remains unclaimed, because it arrives later than passengers, and for the delivery of luggage to passengers it is it takes a certain amount of time,” they say at Belgrade Airport.
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