BEING THERE:At journey's end, as you wearily wait at the airport carousel for your bags to make an appearance so you can leave for home, have you ever wondered what's really happening on the other side of that mysterious wall? asks Róisín Ingle.
'OUR philosophy is that we treat the bags as if they were our own," says Jimmy O'Toole, Aer Lingus baggage-hall manager, raising his voice above the relentless clatter of luggage on carousels in a hectic Dublin Airport. "That's what we tell all the lads; pack them, don't throw them, think of how you'd like your own bags to be treated, and they are very conscientious like that."
Jimmy is standing in the equivalent of the airport's backstage area, a place to which most passengers barely give a thought after their bags are checked in. But beyond the public baggage hall in Dublin Airport, where this morning travellers gather in various states of irritation and anticipation around an empty carousel, is a land of luggage that's usually unseen. It's a tightly run baggage-processing factory where an army of handlers beaver away, getting luggage on to flights, often with only seconds to spare.
IN CONTRAST with Heathrow, where airport bosses have been castigated for the recent baggage-related chaos in the newly-opened Terminal Five, things run smoothly at Dublin Airport, as far as Aer Lingus bags are concerned. Jimmy keeps a close eye on the figures.
"It's the biggest challenge we have, keeping the numbers of lost or delayed bags down," he says. Last February, for every 1,000 passengers, only three bags were delayed. This rose to four in May and April and generally peaks at around five in the busier summer months. "You want to keep it as low as possible. With the summer, now there are more flights, so you need to keep on top of it all the time."
He explains how the baggage process works. When Aer Lingus passengers on the floors above check in their bags, the luggage - the airline handles an average of 10,000 to 12,000 bags a day - winds its way through the security screening down to the baggage area below, where it is processed from a network of creaking carousels.
"Different staff crews are allocated to different destinations, so they will look after designated bags. That one, for example, is going to Paris," says Jimmy, pointing at a large pink suitcase rumbling past on the outbound carousel. The bags are then loaded into aluminium containers - also known as bins - which can carry between 25 and 30 pieces of luggage.
Every day, staff work off a printed schedule which tells them how many containers are needed per flight and where in the aircraft each one should be stowed. "Each bin has an individual number which tallies with the destination. The handler takes the bag off the carousel and then removes the small sticky label off the bag's main tag, then that label is stuck onto the bingo card." The what card, Jimmy? He laughs and explains that the "bingo card system" was introduced around 10 years ago when Aer Lingus containerised the entire baggage process, which led to luggage being loaded mechanically instead of manually. The white card is not unlike a bingo card, but the empty spaces are filled up with labels instead of numbers, each one representing a bag.
"If a passenger doesn't make a flight for whatever reason we have to get the bag back to security. We know from looking at the bingo card on the outside of the container which bags are inside," he says.
And bingo cards are not the only secrets of the Aer Lingus baggage area. "The carousels are divided into Northside and Southside," smiles Jimmy. "Some people refuse to work on the Northside."
'SOMETIMES THERE are delays with the bags," says John Kirwan, one of the 300-strong crew of Aer Lingus handlers. "But not very often. You are always conscious of people arriving after a three-hour flight with kids - you don't want them crying outside in the hall. I have a couple of kids myself, so I know what it's like. You just try to get the bags on and off the carousels as quick as you can."
On a good day it can take as little as 15 minutes for the luggage to be transported from the aircraft into the baggage hall where it is then retrieved by passengers. When the weather is bad - the area around the waiting planes, known as "the ramp", resembles a lake this morning thanks to heavy rain - it can take up to half an hour. Early mornings are the most frantic. "You have two transatlantic flights that come in at 5am, with lots of transfer passengers connecting to flights that leave at 6am. Most of the time we get their bags onto the connecting flight, but sometimes it goes belly-up and you can't physically make the connection," says John.
We walk down three flights of stairs to the controversial Area 14, an extension to the existing Aer Lingus facilities which recently was the subject of a baggage handling dispute. Jimmy explains that initially some staff were unhappy about working in this basement, which feels more spacious than the floor above. "There were horror stories at first. There was talk about it being like a dungeon," he says. "But it's open and clear and conditions have been improved. Some staff actually prefer working down here now because it is less hectic. You'd still have one or two that wouldn't be happy, but you always get that."
IN PREVIOUS employment, Jimmy was a plumber and John was an electrician. "The place is full of tradesmen," says John. "We could build a house on our own."
He says it's the best job he has ever had. "I just like the variety of it, there is so much going on, whether you are out on the ramp getting the containers onto the aircraft or manually hauling late bags into a hold."
Recently, John successfully applied for a new scheme in which airline staff can access further education and he will be studying business at UCD in the autumn. "It's just a great feeling to know that I am going to college," he says. "I left school at 15. I never had this kind of opportunity. I am the first one in my family or even my extended family to go to college. My father died a couple of years ago but he put himself through night school, so he would have been chuffed."
Danny Lavin, from Mayo ("We get to Croke Park, but we never win"), is in charge of the ramp area where the containers of luggage are loaded onto the aircraft. He's been working for Aer Lingus for more than 30 years.
"It's the best job I ever had," he says, in what seems a familiar refrain from workers around here. "I worked on the buildings in England after I left school, then on the buses in Dublin back in the 1970s when there was very little work and you took anything you could find. But this is best."
Danny explains how the loading charts are drawn up and how the different containers of luggage and catering supplies are mechanically lifted into the different holds, ensuring the aircraft is in balance from tail to nose. It seems to mean more than a job to him. I ask him about Jimmy's principle, that staff treat the bags as if they were their own. "The majority do, but some don't," he says. "There are people who take it out on the baggage if they have a problem with the company. 90 per cent of people go out and do a great job but there are some people who don't give a damn."
Danny is not one of them. Around here, they say he would load a plane on his own if it came to it. There was that night the two flights, to Malaga and New York, were delayed. "It was very messy. Danny was sitting on the Malaga flight going on his holidays but when he heard what was happening he got off the flight, put a high vis jacket on and helped us load the New York aircraft. It was 1am, but that would be the way of him," says John.
Does having inside knowledge of luggage-land make the baggage handling crews more understanding when their own bags go missing on holiday? "Well I don't be over at the desk screaming and shouting, if that's what you mean," says John. "You definitely understand that the staff are trying everything, but sometimes delays just happen."
Have they any tips about luggage for travellers? The biggest problem, the men say, is haversacks. "They have strings down the side of them and if they catch in the belt it jams and then all the bags coming after it go on the floor. It physically stops the operation," says Jimmy.
THEY ALSO process plenty of bags that have seen better days and some containing unusual goods. Along with the usual hauls of sausages and rashers, John once found a bale of briquettes in a bag that had split open.
It's not uncommon that badly packed bottles of alcohol will smash somewhere between the carousel and the aircraft. "You don't like to see people going off on their holidays with a leaking suitcase but that does happen," says Jimmy. Any bags that are in disrepair are taped up by staff before being loaded onto the aircraft.
When Terminal Two is opened late next year, the current system of baggage processing will be replaced, probably by one similar to that operating in Heathrow. The plan is to create a more efficient system to process increasing numbers of bags - in the past six months around eight million pieces of luggage passed through Dublin Airport. When the new system is introduced it will be goodbye to the bingo cards and hello (probably) to hand-held barcode scanners, the kind seen in some of the more high-tech supermarkets. Jimmy isn't worried about the new system coming in.
"Even if there are teething problems, which there probably will be, they will be ironed out fairly quickly," he says. "And I'm sure we'll learn from Heathrow not to make the same mistakes. It can only be an improvement, for both staff and passengers. It's the kind of change that can only be for the good."
