The great stress at the start of the holiday

Long waiting times, canceled flights, lost suitcases: chaotic conditions at Zurich Airport have repeatedly made headlines and annoyed passengers in recent weeks. And with the start of the summer holidays in the canton of Zurich, the biggest rush this weekend is just around the corner.

As the Tamedia newspapers reported this week, the police have to intervene almost every day because angry passengers threaten the ground staff, spit on them or try to climb over the barriers and into the counters. Employees at the ground handler and various airlines complain about poor working conditions and a lack of staff.

How could it come to this?

Before the big rush

Terminal 1, four days before the big rush. Jan Enderli is standing under the large scoreboard and is on the phone. Enderli is 54, tanned and looks like he has just returned from a vacation at the beach. If it wasn’t for his uniform. As a terminal manager, he makes sure that the passengers are in the right place. If a baggage carousel breaks, the first thing the employees at check-in do is call Enderli. And if someone spills a drink on the floor, the terminal manager calls out the cleaning staff.

Enderli sees himself as a “host”, he calls the airport “our house”. He has been working here as a terminal manager for 16 years. However, his career at Zurich Airport has lasted much longer. As a teenager, he completed an aviation apprenticeship with Swissair – an apprenticeship that no longer exists today. He was later employed by Swissport before moving to his current role at Flughafen Zürich AG.

A colleague has just dropped out, Enderli is on call. “The holiday season is always a challenge – especially in summer,” he says. “But we have prepared well.” Specifically, the rosters have been adjusted and the staff increased. So-called passenger flow managers – mostly retired employees of the airport – will also guide passengers to check-in, the security check or the gate on the first weekend in Zurich.

Almost as many passengers as before the pandemic

It’s still quiet on Monday afternoon. A line has formed in front of the Swiss counters in Check-in 1, but there is still no sign of crowding or hectic. We go through Check-in 2, past ten self-bag-drop machines that have been here since March.

An airport employee is helping two older women to heave the luggage onto the conveyor belt, otherwise the hall is empty. Everything would go faster at the machines than at the conventional counter. Only: the majority of passengers still want to be checked in by a person, not by a machine.

Before the pandemic, 110,000 passengers traveled through Zurich Airport on peak days during the summer holidays. In January there were 15,000, but currently up to 90,000 again. The flights take off in waves: in the morning, at noon, in the afternoon and in the evening. In the last few weeks, the peaks have exceeded the number of passengers before the pandemic around noon, says Enderli. “It picked up again quickly, we had to start operations again very quickly.”

It was a challenge, yes, but Enderli doesn’t want to hear about a lack of staff or chaos. And the media spokeswoman adds: “It’s going better in Zurich than anywhere else.” This is probably one of the reasons why it was once again voted the best airport in Europe last year. Enderli adds: “There can be backlogs at certain points. But that can also happen when you’re driving.”

Congestion at Swissport

So everything ok at the airport? No, think Sandra Müller and Rosa Meier. The two work at Swissport, the operator of check-in counters, baggage handling and passenger admission at the gates. Meier says: “We are at the end.” And Müller adds: “For months we have been working as much as we normally only do during vacation times. It’s probably going to get worse now.” Both express themselves anonymously for fear of reprisals.

If you believe the two employees and the VPOD, the ground staff union, there is a lot going on at Swissport: too few staff, a lot of overtime, hardly any time for breaks and only a few days off. On the other hand, many employees who become ill from being overworked. At the request of the NZZ, Swissport wrote that the legal requirements for rest days and rest periods were strictly observed. Employees also have the option of refusing additional services at any time.

However, the company admits that the workload of ground staff is currently high and the absenteeism rate has probably increased due to the higher workload in the spring. The aviation industry is in an unprecedented crisis. Canceled flights and the chaos at foreign airports also led to considerable additional work for employees in Zurich.

Currently, the volume of luggage that is delivered later is five times higher than with regular flight operations. “We have enough staff to handle the regular flight schedule, but not five times as much to cushion operational irregularities, most of which occur abroad,” writes Swissport.

Sandra Müller is a manager in passenger service. She has to ensure that passengers and luggage land on the right flights with the right documents. She reports on full, sometimes overbooked flights, on 16-year-old apprentices who have to throw a gate alone, on a 25-year-old colleague who is burned out – and on angry passengers.

“People don’t see how overburdened we are. They think we’re incompetent and snap at us,” she says. “But we only have two hands.” Anyone who goes on vacation now simply has to accept that everything will take a little longer – without freaking out right away.

Rosa Meier has been behind the check-in counter and the gate barrier for many years. She likes to help people. “That’s not processing for me.” It’s about understanding people and their problems and helping them as best we can. But that is hardly possible at the moment. Too little time, too little energy.

Everyday life determined by the device

The everyday life of Rosa Meier and Sandra Müller at the airport is determined by a device. It is a smartphone provided by the employer. The Swissport employees are informed about their next assignments on this device. The plan keeps changing. Delays, cancellations, missing passengers or pieces of luggage: something can always happen.

Check-in, gate, transit and back again: You are always on the go, always under time pressure, says Rosa Meier. “What it shows on the phone – you run to it.” There are so many people at the counters that there is hardly any time to take a breather.

Swissport writes that they are trying to improve operational planning in order to relieve the employees. The job creation started in December 2021 and 500 new employees were recruited at the Zurich location by June. This corresponds to the largest job increase in the history of Swissport. And the recruitment continues.

The work at the check-in counters has become more difficult during the pandemic: It is no longer just visas that have to be checked, but also the constantly changing corona regulations, which are still in place despite easing in many destination countries. Do the passengers have the right documents and a mask with them? Did you fill out all the forms? These questions are often met with a lack of understanding, as Sandra Müller and Rosa Meier report. “We’re just doing our job and not the rules.”

Listen before you freak out

With the dissatisfaction of the employees, the risk of more chaos on the ground also increases. The system still works because the people worked themselves out to the point of exhaustion, say the two Swissport employees. However, a few weeks ago, the ground staff terminated the crisis collective labor agreement at the end of the year. Until then, there may not be an official strike, but other protest actions have already been announced for the next few weeks. There could even be an illegal strike without union involvement.

The demands of the employees and their union are simple: a return to the collective labor agreement (GAV) as it was before the pandemic. With higher wages and more predictable deployment times. Currently, as explained by VPOD trade union secretary Stefan Brülisauer, deployment times are often changed at short notice, and a six-day week has become the norm. “The ground staff continue to work for less money under worse conditions.” Unfortunately, the negotiations have so far been unsuccessful.

According to Swissport, the situation is more complicated. Because the unions had terminated the crisis CLA, a return to the old collective labor agreement from 2019 was not possible. After the end of the crisis in aviation, this was planned. But with the termination, this passage has become obsolete.

So a new collective employment contract is needed – or a return to individual employment contracts. Swissport writes: “The previous demands of the unions cannot be financed for us and also do not take into account the current trends in aviation with an increased need for operational flexibility.” The company has written losses in the millions since the pandemic to this day and has recorded a drop in profits of up to 90 percent at times in the last two years.

So far, those involved have not been able to agree, and according to Swissport, the unions have rejected several offers. Negotiations will resume in August after the summer holidays.

Tips from the pros

What does that mean for passengers who only want one thing at the start of their vacation: carefree far away? “What I really want from you is just a little understanding and compassion,” says Sandra Müller, “and that you just listen to me before you freak out.”

Terminal Manager Jan Enderli from Flughafen Zürich AG has a few specific tips for passengers. “Arrive at the airport up to three hours in advance, do everything you can from home and travel with as little hand luggage as possible.”

Anyone traveling with Swiss or Edelweiss can also have their luggage picked up at home. On the website of Zurich Airport you can You can also subscribe to Whatsapp notifications for your own flight. For example, you can query the waiting time for the security check and be informed when you should go to the gate.

The check-in staff that NZZ spoke to have two more tips for passengers. First: Because many things are currently taking a little longer, waiting times should be estimated generously. “Only an hour to change trains – that’s a risk, for example,” says Sandra Müller.

Second: The porters on the airfield are also at their limit at the moment. “That makes them happy and packs lightly,” says Rosa Meier. “On Mallorca you need little more than a pair of swimming trunks.”