TMR's all new "Tales from the Underworld" thread

[The Moan Ranger]

Woke up at 13:30 yesterday for my final night of night shift (17:00-05:00) before 12 days off and looked at my phone.

No issues at Gatwick 

Couple of cups of tea, couple of ciggies and then put some food on. Started munching it at 14:30. Phone pings up a message :- "Hold Baggage Screening Matrix failure affecting the TBF". The TBF is my bit of the system 

Get to work at 16:15 and survey the scene. In front of the Line Controllers' desk is a baggae cart with about 30 bags on it. Not to bad methinks, but I'm worried as we don't appear to be receiving the volume of bags I would expect. Stroll into the office, say my pleasantries and ask if anyone had checked how late the missed bags were. Blank faces all round until one pipes up "It's nowhere as bad as last time". They send a meassage to all interested parties (Gatwick Airport, easyJet etc.) stating "about 50 missed bags".

I call them idiots and walk out. The supervisor I relieve subsequently scarpers off home.

I check the details of a few of the missed bags...checked in at 13:47, received by us at 15:41. Checked in at 14:02, received by us at 16:16. And so forth.

Wandered back into the office and told "the big boss" to expect hundreds of missed bags - and that the latency of arrival of the bags meant that we could still be getting bags for flights that had probably already landed elsewhere. He's just returned from a 3 week cruise holiday and was very tanned, however, this news turned him ashen and he promptly scarpered off home with simple instructions - "sort it". The Duty Manager waffled on a bit about me ensuring I sent as many bags out last night as I could. I reminded him of the scale of the delay in bags getting to us and it would be wiser to wait until close of play and send all the missed bags in one hit this morning rather than fannying around with the odd 1 or 2 that could have gone. In addition, by this time, there were now 6 baggage carts full of missed bags. He mumbled something in Polish then scarpered off home, as the next Duty Manager, Paul, had arrived.

Luckily we have an area in the baggage hall which we don't use in the afternoon, so I grabbed two blokes and set about sorting the bags into destination airports - simple left to right, A-Z. Aberdeen to Zadar. By the close of play, there were 473 missed bags. Myself, Paul and big Matt then set about "Rushing" them onto flights this morning - lots of paperwork (unaccompanied baggage) but we can "mini-Rush" them as they are "clean bags" - i.e. they hadn't left our facility thus didn't need re-screening. By 00:16 this morning, all bags had been re-labelled, manifested and put on the World Tracer system. By 15:30 all bags had either already been taken out by me to their respective aircraft for the first wave flights, of placed alongside the baggage cart for this morning's flights, if there were just a few - they'll get taken at that time, with the rest of the bags.

45 flights in all will have 1 - 35 (Geneva) mini-Rushed bags going with them this morning.  463 bags will be re-united with their owners sometime today (assuming these bleedin' foreigners the other side courier them ASAP) and 10 bags will arrive in Ljublana tomorrow, as we don't fly there today.

By 04:00 I was completely knackered and sore - being hunched over a pile of bags writing the original tag numbers on the manifest and then re-labelling and lugging them onto baggage carts - takes a toll on these old bones. Mind you, Paul and Matt, 15 years my junior, were suffering too.

By 05:00 I was in the staff car park. By 05:30 I was home. By 05.31 I was drinking a beer. By now, I'm on my 3rd. In twenty minutes I'll be asleep. In 7 hours, I'll be back up and in the pub on the Guinness. With 12 days off 

You just gotta work at the airport - it's completely banonkers 

[Barman]

Woke up at 13:30 yesterday for my final night of night shift (17:00-05:00) before 12 days off and looked at my phone.

No issues at Gatwick 

Couple of cups of tea, couple of ciggies and then put some food on. Started munching it at 14:30. Phone pings up a message :- "Hold Baggage Screening Matrix failure affecting the TBF". The TBF is my bit of the system 

Get to work at 16:15 and survey the scene. In front of the Line Controllers' desk is a baggae cart with about 30 bags on it. Not to bad methinks, but I'm worried as we don't appear to be receiving the volume of bags I would expect. Stroll into the office, say my pleasantries and ask if anyone had checked how late the missed bags were. Blank faces all round until one pipes up "It's nowhere as bad as last time". They send a meassage to all interested parties (Gatwick Airport, easyJet etc.) stating "about 50 missed bags".

I call them idiots and walk out. The supervisor I relieve subsequently scarpers off home.

I check the details of a few of the missed bags...checked in at 13:47, received by us at 15:41. Checked in at 14:02, received by us at 16:16. And so forth.

Wandered back into the office and told "the big boss" to expect hundreds of missed bags - and that the latency of arrival of the bags meant that we could still be getting bags for flights that had probably already landed elsewhere. He's just returned from a 3 week cruise holiday and was very tanned, however, this news turned him ashen and he promptly scarpered off home with simple instructions - "sort it". The Duty Manager waffled on a bit about me ensuring I sent as many bags out last night as I could. I reminded him of the scale of the delay in bags getting to us and it would be wiser to wait until close of play and send all the missed bags in one hit this morning rather than fannying around with the odd 1 or 2 that could have gone. In addition, by this time, there were now 6 baggage carts full of missed bags. He mumbled something in Polish then scarpered off home, as the next Duty Manager, Paul, had arrived.

Luckily we have an area in the baggage hall which we don't use in the afternoon, so I grabbed two blokes and set about sorting the bags into destination airports - simple left to right, A-Z. Aberdeen to Zadar. By the close of play, there were 473 missed bags. Myself, Paul and big Matt then set about "Rushing" them onto flights this morning - lots of paperwork (unaccompanied baggage) but we can "mini-Rush" them as they are "clean bags" - i.e. they hadn't left our facility thus didn't need re-screening. By 00:16 this morning, all bags had been re-labelled, manifested and put on the World Tracer system. By 15:30 all bags had either already been taken out by me to their respective aircraft for the first wave flights, of placed alongside the baggage cart for this morning's flights, if there were just a few - they'll get taken at that time, with the rest of the bags.

45 flights in all will have 1 - 35 (Geneva) mini-Rushed bags going with them this morning.  463 bags will be re-united with their owners sometime today (assuming these bleedin' foreigners the other side courier them ASAP) and 10 bags will arrive in Ljublana tomorrow, as we don't fly there today.

By 04:00 I was completely knackered and sore - being hunched over a pile of bags writing the original tag numbers on the manifest and then re-labelling and lugging them onto baggage carts - takes a toll on these old bones. Mind you, Paul and Matt, 15 years my junior, were suffering too.

By 05:00 I was in the staff car park. By 05:30 I was home. By 05.31 I was drinking a beer. By now, I'm on my 3rd. In twenty minutes I'll be asleep. In 7 hours, I'll be back up and in the pub on the Guinness. With 12 days off 

You just gotta work at the airport - it's completely banonkers 

Splendid stuff TMR! 

Tell us about the World Tracer System when you get a minute...?

[The Moan Ranger]

The World Tracer system is very, very basic. White on green early 1990's stuff. It has to be as it is a world system so can only be advanced as the systems used in Shitistan..

All baggage that fails to reach it's destination are logged on it - either by the airport sending it, or the passenger the other end not receiving it. These are called "missed reports". When we don't have 100's of missed bags, we don't log them straight away as more often than not, we have them because the passenger didn't fly. Refused boarding (late or pissed, abusive) or decided not to fly (dead mistress etc.). Passenger simply collects them at our baggage services desk and fucks off.

Real missed bags (we've dropped them off a baggage cart en route to the aircraft, or too late before they've closed the aircraft doors) will be logged. When the passenger the other end reports them missing, the station that end will see that we still have the bag and will ask the passenger what they want done with it - fly it over, courier it to X hotel, fly it to a different airport if they are moving on, leave it - they will pick it up on their way back etc. Sometimes a bag originally destined to Amsterdam must be rushed to the wilds of Australia and that's when we need to have it couriered to Heathrow with instructions. There are certain airports we avoid, as these bags tend to go missing or fail to complete the next legs on time.

All these details are then recorded on the "forward" so that the receiving station knows what to do with it.

It's a laborious process although our teccies are working on putting a decent GUI interface on it for our use.

If, however, the bag is going to Charles de Gaulle and I sense a French surname, I have the bag incinerated. Because the French are all arrogant cowardly bastards, communists or peasants.

[Barman]

The World Tracer system is very, very basic. White on green early 1990's stuff. It has to be as it is a world system so can only be advanced as the systems used in Shitistan..

All baggage that fails to reach it's destination are logged on it - either by the airport sending it, or the passenger the other end not receiving it. These are called "missed reports". When we don't have 100's of missed bags, we don't log them straight away as more often than not, we have them because the passenger didn't fly. Refused boarding (late or pissed, abusive) or decided not to fly (dead mistress etc.). Passenger simply collects them at our baggage services desk and fucks off.

Real missed bags (we've dropped them off a baggage cart en route to the aircraft, or too late before they've closed the aircraft doors) will be logged. When the passenger the other end reports them missing, the station that end will see that we still have the bag and will ask the passenger what they want done with it - fly it over, courier it to X hotel, fly it to a different airport if they are moving on, leave it - they will pick it up on their way back etc. Sometimes a bag originally destined to Amsterdam must be rushed to the wilds of Australia and that's when we need to have it couriered to Heathrow with instructions. There are certain airports we avoid, as these bags tend to go missing or fail to complete the next legs on time.

All these details are then recorded on the "forward" so that the receiving station knows what to do with it.

It's a laborious process although our teccies are working on putting a decent GUI interface on it for our use.

If, however, the bag is going to Charles de Gaulle and I sense a French surname, I have the bag incinerated. Because the French are all arrogant cowardly bastards, communists or peasants.

[Steve]

   (but somewhat relieved my next flight is Heathrow)

Can I ask what's a 'screening matrix failure' and (looking at this from a passenger viewpoint) does anyone get shot for causing it?

[The Moan Ranger]

  (but somewhat relieved my next flight is Heathrow)

Can I ask what's a 'screening matrix failure' and (looking at this from a passenger viewpoint) does anyone get shot for causing it?

These are the new, super-doopah X-ray machines used for scanning hold baggage. They've only recently been installed and are compliant with the new DfT regulations. There are 4 of them in the North Teminal.  £2 million a peice. For some reason (they think a wiring issue - and there's about 2 miles of wires) one of the X-ray machines failed and when they tried to to reset it, it started a chain reaction that took out the other 3. They managed to get 1 working again. Thus all the baggage for the North Terminal had to be manually moved across to the  remaining X-ray and then re-fed into the baggage belts that serve our area.

On average, it takes 12 minutes from a bag being checked-in to reaching us, yesterday afternoon it was nearly 2 hours.

It still isn't fixed - this morning they brought an army of people with hand scanners in to cope. It was quite heartbreaking writing out the missed-bag manifests yesterday; on numerous flights 1 had 4 or 5 bags all for the same family.

[Nick]

Can you help expedite Miss I's "sundry personal electrical items"? 

[apc2010]

Can you help expedite Miss I's "sundry personal electrical items"? 

Give them a special slot like ........

[Nick]

 

Something like that, old man 

[Steve]

  (but somewhat relieved my next flight is Heathrow)

Can I ask what's a 'screening matrix failure' and (looking at this from a passenger viewpoint) does anyone get shot for causing it?

These are the new, super-doopah X-ray machines used for scanning hold baggage. They've only recently been installed and are compliant with the new DfT regulations. There are 4 of them in the North Teminal.  £2 million a peice. For some reason (they think a wiring issue - and there's about 2 miles of wires) one of the X-ray machines failed and when they tried to to reset it, it started a chain reaction that took out the other 3. They managed to get 1 working again. Thus all the baggage for the North Terminal had to be manually moved across to the  remaining X-ray and then re-fed into the baggage belts that serve our area.

On average, it takes 12 minutes from a bag being checked-in to reaching us, yesterday afternoon it was nearly 2 hours.

It still isn't fixed - this morning they brought an army of people with hand scanners in to cope. It was quite heartbreaking writing out the missed-bag manifests yesterday; on numerous flights 1 had 4 or 5 bags all for the same family.

Ta for that, interesting but as you say depressing

[The Moan Ranger]

Lost property.

When the aircraft parks up for the night, the Cabin Crew is meant to check for lost property. In reality, they get off it ASAP as they are desperate to get in the sack with the Captain/F.O..

Hence our cleaners find lots of things that the crew should have removed and passed to the lost/found desk. In the past 2 shifts :-

MacBook Pro
Numerous Kindles
Numerous mobile phones
Numerous other tablet PCs
Wallets/purses (one tatty looking wallet had £580 in £20 notes - no cards or anything to identify the owner)
Numerous spectacles/sunglasses, not the cheap stuff either
Numerous passports (how do they manage to get out of the airport???)

On Wednesday night, an iPhone 11 Pro. My young colleagues told me that this is "a serious bit of kit". It was completely flat but we have a selection of charging cables available so I put it on charge and waited. About 40 minutes later, it started to ring. I answered it a very worried sounding lady started gibbering at me demanding to know who I was etc. I resisted the temptation to wind her up further and told her it was safe with me at LGW. She said she would return to LGW immediately to retrieve it and I said no problem, I'd leave it on charge until she arrived. An hour later it rang again and she informed me she was at the lost/found desk with her friend (whose phone she was using) so I left our office and walked the 5 minutes or so over to our desk. She immediately burst into tears - jeez you'd have thought I'd just donated a kidney the way she was blubbing. She then tried thrusting £20 into my hand, told her I couldn't accept and wished her a pleasant onward journey.

Sometimes, night shifts are nice 

Also, easyJet gave us a surprise audit on our plane cleaning performance - its been 3 months since we took over - in the previous audit they gave the old company 56%. They gave us 91%    The bigwigs were most chuffed 

[apc2010]

Lost property.

When the aircraft parks up for the night, the Cabin Crew is meant to check for lost property. In reality, they get off it ASAP as they are desperate to get in the sack with the Captain/F.O..

Hence our cleaners find lots of things that the crew should have removed and passed to the lost/found desk. In the past 2 shifts :-

MacBook Pro
Numerous Kindles
Numerous mobile phones
Numerous other tablet PCs
Wallets/purses (one tatty looking wallet had £580 in £20 notes - no cards or anything to identify the owner)
Numerous spectacles/sunglasses, not the cheap stuff either
Numerous passports (how do they manage to get out of the airport???)

On Wednesday night, an iPhone 11 Pro. My young colleagues told me that this is "a serious bit of kit". It was completely flat but we have a selection of charging cables available so I put it on charge and waited. About 40 minutes later, it started to ring. I answered it a very worried sounding lady started gibbering at me demanding to know who I was etc. I resisted the temptation to wind her up further and told her it was safe with me at LGW. She said she would return to LGW immediately to retrieve it and I said no problem, I'd leave it on charge until she arrived. An hour later it rang again and she informed me she was at the lost/found desk with her friend (whose phone she was using) so I left our office and walked the 5 minutes or so over to our desk. She immediately burst into tears - jeez you'd have thought I'd just donated a kidney the way she was blubbing. She then tried thrusting £20 into my hand, told her I couldn't accept and wished her a pleasant onward journey.

Sometimes, night shifts are nice 

Also, easyJet gave us a surprise audit on our plane cleaning performance - its been 3 months since we took over - in the previous audit they gave the old company 56%. They gave us 91%    The bigwigs were most chuffed 

Did you check the gallery on the phone .......   if she was that keen to get it back.......

[The Moan Ranger]

That thought crossed my mind, too. Phone was locked though 

[Barman]

Lost property.

When the aircraft parks up for the night, the Cabin Crew is meant to check for lost property. In reality, they get off it ASAP as they are desperate to get in the sack with the Captain/F.O..

Hence our cleaners find lots of things that the crew should have removed and passed to the lost/found desk. In the past 2 shifts :-

MacBook Pro
Numerous Kindles
Numerous mobile phones
Numerous other tablet PCs
Wallets/purses (one tatty looking wallet had £580 in £20 notes - no cards or anything to identify the owner)
Numerous spectacles/sunglasses, not the cheap stuff either
Numerous passports (how do they manage to get out of the airport???)

On Wednesday night, an iPhone 11 Pro. My young colleagues told me that this is "a serious bit of kit". It was completely flat but we have a selection of charging cables available so I put it on charge and waited. About 40 minutes later, it started to ring. I answered it a very worried sounding lady started gibbering at me demanding to know who I was etc. I resisted the temptation to wind her up further and told her it was safe with me at LGW. She said she would return to LGW immediately to retrieve it and I said no problem, I'd leave it on charge until she arrived. An hour later it rang again and she informed me she was at the lost/found desk with her friend (whose phone she was using) so I left our office and walked the 5 minutes or so over to our desk. She immediately burst into tears - jeez you'd have thought I'd just donated a kidney the way she was blubbing. She then tried thrusting £20 into my hand, told her I couldn't accept and wished her a pleasant onward journey.

Sometimes, night shifts are nice 

Also, easyJet gave us a surprise audit on our plane cleaning performance - its been 3 months since we took over - in the previous audit they gave the old company 56%. They gave us 91%    The bigwigs were most chuffed 

 

Bloke I know is a cleaner at Heathrow... Not much stuff he finds gets returned... 

[Darwins Selection]

Lost property.

When the aircraft parks up for the night, the Cabin Crew is meant to check for lost property. In reality, they get off it ASAP as they are desperate to get in the sack with the Captain/F.O..

Hence our cleaners find lots of things that the crew should have removed and passed to the lost/found desk. In the past 2 shifts :-

MacBook Pro
Numerous Kindles
Numerous mobile phones
Numerous other tablet PCs
Wallets/purses (one tatty looking wallet had £580 in £20 notes - no cards or anything to identify the owner)
Numerous spectacles/sunglasses, not the cheap stuff either
Numerous passports (how do they manage to get out of the airport???)

On Wednesday night, an iPhone 11 Pro. My young colleagues told me that this is "a serious bit of kit". It was completely flat but we have a selection of charging cables available so I put it on charge and waited. About 40 minutes later, it started to ring. I answered it a very worried sounding lady started gibbering at me demanding to know who I was etc. I resisted the temptation to wind her up further and told her it was safe with me at LGW. She said she would return to LGW immediately to retrieve it and I said no problem, I'd leave it on charge until she arrived. An hour later it rang again and she informed me she was at the lost/found desk with her friend (whose phone she was using) so I left our office and walked the 5 minutes or so over to our desk. She immediately burst into tears - jeez you'd have thought I'd just donated a kidney the way she was blubbing. She then tried thrusting £20 into my hand, told her I couldn't accept and wished her a pleasant onward journey.

Sometimes, night shifts are nice 

Also, easyJet gave us a surprise audit on our plane cleaning performance - its been 3 months since we took over - in the previous audit they gave the old company 56%. They gave us 91%    The bigwigs were most chuffed 

Good man