COMMUNICATIONS MINISTER Nicos Nicolaides met with Hermes airport operator yesterday evening to examine the situation concerning the ground-handling services of Swissport and LGS.
Hermes submitted the report that contained the action plan of the two companies over the measures they are taking. The companies explained what they have been up to since July 2 when Nicolaides set a deadline for them to shape up and explained what will happen from now on with the specific timeframes they were assigned.
The Minister referred to the most important issues as follows:
The hiring of personnel. LGS is hiring thirty employees and Swissport is hiring ninety. Eighty per cent of the employees have already been hired and the hiring will end on July 15.
The training of personnel. Trainers are already in Cyprus to train the staff of the two companies. Training for LGS will end on July 18 and for Swissport July 31.
The companies agreed to sign an agreement of co-operation tomorrow that they will assist each other in peak season in terms of equipment and personnel.
Counsellors for the security of passengers will also be hired. Also, a system of monitoring the performance will be applied in order to take measures of improvement.
Implementation of the measures is expected by the end of July.
The Minister said that “the important issue is the monitoring of the application of the plan of action by Hermes and the Department of Civil Aviation “.
While confirming that Swissport was the company responsible for the majority of the problems, Hermes President Nicos Shacolas detailed the reasons behind the chaotic scenes at the island’s terminals last week.
“We had asked them to bring experienced personnel from abroad, to hire more workers and pay them the correct wage. They had brought in some foreign workers who did not know how to communicate with other staff. They also had a very bad attitude towards the unions as well as their own staff and other workers at the airports. Well, all these problems caused the situation we had seen,” he said.
Last week, Head of the Cypriot Air-Accident Investigation Committee Costas Orfanos warned that the crisis at both Larnaca and Paphos airports could affect flight security.
Shacolas refuted Orfanos’ claims, saying that the flight security was never in jeopardy.
“Regarding the security concerns, there was never an issue of a lack of safety and all these comments should not have been made,” he told state radio.
The situation at Paphos and Larnaca airports had been a cause of concern for the Civil Aviation Authority due to what were classed as initial ‘teething problems’ since the transfer of the ground handling operations from Hermes to Swissport – GAP Vassilopoulos and LGS at the end of May.
However a number of embarrassing incidents last week, including a case where a group of passengers were boarded onto the wrong flight at Larnaca airport, raised the alarm bells and forced Communications Minister Nicos Nicolaides to warn the two companies that unless they had improved their services by July 7, yesterday, then Hermes would be instructed to break their contract for the ground handling services at both Larnaca and Paphos airports.
