UK airport staff offered cash bonuses for spotting easyJet passengers with oversized bags

Airport staff have been earning cash bonuses for every easyJet passenger they spot travelling with oversized cabin bags, according to a leaked email.

An internal email seen by The Sunday Times has revealed that staff at Swissport, an aviation company that provides ground handling services, were told they were “eligible to receive £1.20 (£1 after tax) for every gate bag taken, effective immediately”.

The email was reportedly sent to Swissport employees working at seven airports across the UK in Belfast, Birmingham, Glasgow, Jersey, Liverpool and Newcastle.

The cash bonuses were introduced to staff as the easyJet gate bag revenue incentive, which is “intended to reward agents doing the right thing” and would result in “payments made directly to employees”.

The email was sent in November 2023, with The Sunday Times stating that the policy is still in force.

The message was signed off by Dean Martin, a Swissport station manager at Glasgow Airport, who said: “Thank you for your ongoing contribution to the success of easyJet.”

Other ground handling companies, such as DHL Supply Chain, also have similar remuneration packages for identifying easyJet bags that do not comply with easyJet’s dimensions.

DHL Supply Chain, which operates at Gatwick, Bristol and Manchester airports, receives a “nominal amount” per bag, the publication states.

The extra cash incentive applies to bags that are deemed too big to the taken into the cabin, either because the passenger has not paid to take a larger suitcase or their free hand luggage is too big.

If a passenger's cabin bags or non-purchased bags are brought to the gate, easyJet will charge £48 and place the bags in the hold.

Strict airline baggage rules across various airlines have caused contention at the gate, especially when passengers are handed hefty fees if staff deem their bags noncompliant with their policies.

The Sunday Times says that £1.20 of this fee will be paid to the ground handler. Ground handling agents are employed by third parties, which vary from airport to airport. They manage agent remuneration directly, and easyJet do not have oversight on this.

Swissport ground handlers earn around £12 per hour. One former Swissport passenger service manager told a publication that he and his colleagues had no choice but to keep a check on oversized baggage.

“Confronting people with excess baggage is like taking on fare dodgers,” he told The Sunday Times on the condition of anonymity.

“You risk abuse or worse — imagine stopping a group of lads on a stag weekend and telling them, ‘I’m going to have to charge you more than you paid for your tickets to check those bags into the hold’.”

A spokesperson for Swissport told The Independent: “We serve our airline customers and apply their policies under terms and conditions for managing their operation.

“We’re highly professional and our focus is on delivering safe and efficient operations, which we do day in and day out for four million flights per year.”

A spokesperson for DHL Supply Chain also told The Independent: "We're fully committed to ensuring the safety, security, and on-time departure of all aircraft. A critical component of this is adherence to the easyJet Baggage Policy, which plays a vital role in maintaining an efficient operation as well as passenger safety.”

The company requires “all colleagues to consistently adhere to [the easyJet baggage policy] and this is recognised as part of their remuneration”.

“Doing so ensures we provide a smooth travel experience for every passenger.”

EasyJet said it is “focused on ensuring our ground handling partners apply our policies correctly and consistently in fairness to all our customers”.

“Our bag policies and options are well understood and we remind customers of this when booking, before they travel and on their boarding pass, which means a very small proportion of customers who don’t comply will be charged at the airport,” the spokesperson told The Independent.

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