It’s unfortunate just how often we see airline employees showing absolutely no care when handling the belongings of passengers. The latest such viral situation is especially bad, if you ask me (thanks to @pir8z40 for flagging this)…
Bags thrown down stairs on Cathay Pacific flight
Video footage is going viral of a Cathay Pacific ground agent doing a very poor job with handling bags. Specifically, she seems to have about half a dozen bags on stairs that are connected to the jet bridge, which need to get down to the apron.
Rather than walking them down, she instead literally throws them down the stairs, and they go tumbling. My guess is that these were gate checked bags, since they all seem to be carry-on size, and they’re coming from the jet bridge.
For that matter, it’s possible that this woman wasn’t actually a baggage handler, but rather was an “above wing” ground agent, who needed to get the bags down to baggage handlers in a rush.
It’s not clear at which airport this happened, though we can see that the flight was operated by a Cathay Pacific Boeing 777-300ER with the registration code B-KQY. The jet last flew from Vancouver (YVR) to Hong Kong (HKG) on July 14, 2024. So I wonder if this may have happened on departure in Vancouver, or on a previous flight.
Let me of course acknowledge that baggage handlers and ground agents are largely not working directly for the airline, but rather sometimes work for third party contractors. Still, passengers choose to fly specific airlines, and airlines should be setting the standard for the services provided. Furthermore, the agent is even wearing a Cathay Pacific vest.
Cathay Pacific is now conducting an investigation into the incident, given that this breaches the carrier’s policy for handling bags. The employee in question has been reassigned for the time being, until an investigation is complete.
Do airport employees not realize they’re being watched?
Let me start by acknowledging that many contracted airline employees working at airports have tough jobs — they’re under time pressure, their jobs are physically demanding, they work in some extreme weather conditions, and they’re certainly not the best paid people in the airline industry. Furthermore, they don’t get much recognition, since many of them aren’t customer facing.
That being said, I can’t help but be both disappointed and confused by how often we see these kinds of incidents:
- Do employees not realize that they’re being watched from both the terminal and from the aircraft? They act as if they’re working in complete privacy
- Do some people not have a basic desire to follow the golden rule, and treat other peoples’ bags the way they would want their own bags to be treated?
While it’s common for baggage handlers to maybe not handle bags delicately, only a small minority of people are this careless. But still, when you’re working in public and as part of a team, I don’t understand how this is allowed to happen.
A few months ago, a baggage handling video went viral for a completely different reason. One baggage handler is seen handling bags rather recklessly, and then a supervisor approaches and “coaches” her. That’s the baggage handling hero we need.
Bottom line
Video footage is going viral of a Cathay Pacific representative throwing bags down a set of stairs. It appears to me that these may be gate checked bags, based on how they’re being transported from the jet bridge to the cargo hold. You’d certainly hope that airline employees would handle personal belongings with more care.
The worker in question has now been reassigned for the time being, and the airline has issued an apology and is conducting an investigation.
What do you make of this Cathay Pacific baggage handling situation?
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