By Bronynne Jooste
South African Airways spends hundreds of thousands of rands every month in compensation for passengers' stolen and damaged baggage, according to a former employee who was close to the action.
The disclosures came last week, at about the same time the airline announced it would require an additional R3 billion from the National Treasury. Last year it received R2.8bn.
The money will go towards its restructuring programme, which started three years ago, as a means to return the company to profitability.
But a former employee, who had worked for the airline for more than 20 years and left recently and who wanted to remain anonymous, said the national carrier was losing heaps of money on baggage pilferage alone.
He said baggage theft had been rife from his early years with the company, but it had grown progressively worse.
Just before he left, the talk among staff was that the company was spending up to R500 000 a month on compensation for baggage pilferage or damaged belongings.
Money also is spent on delivering misloaded baggage when suitcases are put on the wrong flights.
"The airline is losing millions. It's been said that four sets of baggage affected for every 1 000 loaded falls within a set of norms, but that is nonsense. At one stage, it was practically a daily thing."
The airport does not cover the loss of items such as wallets, watches, jewellery, cellphones and electric appliances.
But he said staffers often help themselves to the pricier articles of clothing, and creative employees found many ways to hide their stolen loot.
"Shoes are often swopped by taking shoes out of the case and putting their old ones in. Then they rifle through another case and find a better pair of shoes, and they upgrade."
The source said during upgrade construction at OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg, suitcases were found hidden in the ceiling and in the fields on the runway side of the airport.
The source blamed staffing cutbacks for the alarmingly high rate of pilferage. He added there was usually not enough supervision when cargo was taken from the baggage hall to the aircraft.
Luggage was picked up and driven to the plane, and "anything can happen in that time".
Even when loading the luggage, there's ample time to do some "in-flight shopping".
"People also become smart, they know where the static cameras are. You can make your own detours.
"It's really easy and quick to open a suitcase. The ones with the plastic zippers, you put a ballpoint pen in and wiggle it. Then you put your hand in and have a quick feel around."
He said the peak times for pilferage were during school holidays when almost "not one day went by" without some sort of baggage theft.
Although it was normally material goods that were stolen, other things had even more significance. "Once they just plain forgot to load a lady's dog, and that woman had a breakdown. We had to call in the medical team to calm her down. It was quite sad.
"There's always drama and inconvenience, because wedding and birthday presents just go missing. It's terrible."
Chris Smyth, the general manager operations at SAA, said the airline had taken steps to clamp down on baggage theft.
In February the company hired a new ground handler, Swissport International. One of its responsibilities was to handle all passenger baggage at the different terminals.
"With this new appointment, SAA ushered in a new era of baggage-handling for the airline. Since Swissport took over, SAA has experienced a 63 percent reduction in pilferage.
"The number of claims per 1 000 passengers fell from 1.22 claims per 1 000 bags handled in January to 0.45 in June."
The airline has teamed up with Airports Company South Africa and the police to combat baggage crime.
Solomon Makgale, spokesperson for Acsa, said the appointments of new handlers, BidAir and Menzies earlier this year, also was having positive results.