After fall vacation period went smoothly Long queues at Cologne/Bonn Airport again
Bonn/Region · On Friday afternoon, there were again long passenger queues at Cologne/Bonn Airport. According to the union Verdi, two warning letters have already been sent to Securitas.
Major chaos failed to materialize at the security checkpoints at Cologne/Bonn Airport during the fall school vacations, but long passenger lines formed again on Friday afternoon. A video recorded by the service union Verdi showed that the lines of waiting passengers stretched across both terminals. Özay Tarim, the Verdi official responsible for the airport, accused those in charge of creating "dicey situations." Apparently, those involved with staffing had done everything possible to conceal the staff shortages during the fall vacations so that the strain was not too obvious.
The airport reported via Twitter that the wait time at around 3 p.m. was about 60 minutes. But according to Tarim, the wait time at around 4 p.m. was likely well over an hour, if not an hour and a half. "We are not blinded by snapshots." According to him, the procurement office of the Federal Ministry of the Interior had already sent two warning letters to Securitas before the fall vacations, which ended a week ago in North Rhine-Westphalia. The company, which performs security checks on behalf of the federal police, confirmed the warnings at a staff meeting this week, Tarim said. A second warning, however, carries contractual penalties, he said.
During the two-week autumn vacations, Securitas was reinforced by a second company. In addition, so-called part-time workers, i.e. trainees, were allowed to fill in. Verdi sees Securitas as being at the root of the problems in that it only hires part-time workers to save money because they can be deployed more flexibly that way. Munich and Nuremberg airports, which have security checks carried out by publicly owned companies, are seen as role models.
(Orig. text: Ulla Thiede / Translation: Carol Kloeppel)
