(South Africa): Passengers stop reporting baggage theft
Wednesday, 12 Aug 2009
Source: The Times
Date: 12/8/2009
Description: Passengers stop reporting baggage theft
| Passengers stop reporting baggage theft | |
| By Michael Hamlyn, I-Net Bridge | Published:Aug 12, 2009 |
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A top airport official says South Africans have given up reporting baggage theft because they have become so frustrated by rampant theft.
Airport Company of South Africa (Acsa) managing director Monhla Hlahla told MPs that people in this country have become so used to baggage theft that they have given up reporting it. "People are so gatvol of complaining," said Hlahla, briefing the portfolio committee on transport. She insisted that complaints are helpful to the airports company as they help identify weaknesses in their systems. "We are only as smart as you enable us to be with information," she said.
Hlahla said from the moment a bag enters their system the company knows "in real time and on time", exactly where it is, and if it should disappear the system knows where and when it did so.
But she agreed that the system is still not perfect. The target for next year is that pilferage should be cut to eight bags per thousand handled (the worldwide benchmark would be 20 bags per 1,000). John Neville, the group executive for airport services, explained that in the year 2007/08 pilferage affected 30 bags per 1,000, and last year, when Acsa took over from the airlines, that figure dropped to 18. So far this year it is at 12.
"But eight to one thousand is still too many bags," Hlahla said.
She asked for the cooperation of passengers, not only in complaining about their losses but also in securing their bags before committing them to the baggage handlers.
"How you pack, and how you secure your luggage also helps us," she said. When the chair of the committee Ruth Bhengu complained about airline staff asking if she had locked her bags, Hlahla said that she was pleased they did.
The managing director also said that when belongings are stolen they are taken into the community, where they are sold. If people did not buy stolen goods, thefts would stop.
"We need to have a bigger campaign," she said.
In order to make it easier to report thefts, the airports company is planning to reduce the time devoted to making complaints. She said the Acsa staff will help speed repeat complaints to the airlines, and will introduce the facility of reporting missing baggage by SMS.
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