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Baggage Theft

Baggage theft II

Date: 02 December 2007 07:00
Producer: Susan Purèn
Presenter: Devi Sankaree Govender
Researcher: Wynand Grobler
Show: Carte Blanche

For the past five years South Africa's airports have been plagued by crime. It's become so bad that regular travellers fear to check in their luggage because chances are good that it may be pilfered or even disappear before it reaches its destination.

Andrew Pinto's bag went missing between Cape Town and Johannesburg. He was one of eight passengers who lost their luggage on that SAA flight.

Andrew Pinto (SAA passenger): "There were 11 bags that didn't come out of one flight. One of the bags I remember seeing going in was a really big suitcase this girl had. She had two bags ... one of them came out and the other one didn't. You just start wondering what happens with 11 bags. If you see a guy walking around with one bag he could maybe get away with it. But how do they get away with 11 bags?"

Andrew's loss was huge; it amounted to thousands of rand.

Andrew: "I had some really nice clothes in there and when you start adding it up.... When I got home I actually read the terms and conditions that you agree to without ever reading. I mean you book your tickets online ... you tell me that anyone ever reads those terms and conditions. You never do. But they pay $20 per kilogram."

Carte Blanche has been following the issue of baggage theft for the past two years and in May last year exposed how handlers at OR Tambo [International Airport] rummage through bags that had been checked in.

[Carte Blanche 26 May 2006] Watch how the old brown suitcase that was dropped behind the rollers is now moved by this handler. He tries to hide himself behind the pillar and uses the carriage as his work space. He seems to fiddle with it for a while and then presto the bag is open

Devi Sankaree Govender (Carte Blanche presenter): "Well, what has happened since May 2006? At the beginning of this year ACSA told us that things were improving, that baggage theft was down. But the emails and phone calls just kept on flooding into our offices."

Passenger 1: "When I arrived at Sao Paulo I opened the bag immediately and sure enough they didn't steal anything except my camera."

Passenger 2: "I had a bottle of perfume that was stolen, an iPod and a pocket watch."

Passenger 3: "Nineteen ostrich leather jackets ... was booked in at Cape Town. We booked it straight into JFK. When I arrived at JFK my luggage was there, but the stock was gone."

Passenger 4: "The first time was perfume and the second time around was all my make-up."

Passenger 5: "When we finally got our luggage about 10kg of clothing had been stolen from mine."

Kathy Kleynhans's is still furious after her son Eugene's suitcase was almost emptied after it had been checked in at OR Tambo on route to Birmingham in the UK

Kathy Kleynhans: "What had happened was he was here for his brother's 21st and we had brought many gifts for him to take back for Christmas and when he got to Birmingham he noticed that the lock was off his case. When they went out of the actual airport he went through the suitcase with his fiancè and everything that was brought had been taken."

But exactly where does your bag go after you've checked it in? Once it disappears from view it's no longer in the airline's control and goes through a series of security checks by an ACSA appointed company. First it gets screened, then it gets sorted and thereafter the airline's appointed baggage handlers take over. They scan the baggage and drive it to the aircraft. By the time the airline is in possession of your baggage again, it's been handled by at least four different companies. Within this chain it is difficult to find someone to admit accountability.

But now a report to Parliament has confirmed that there was in fact in the past year a massive rise in baggage pilfering for at least one airline, our own national carrier, SAA.

Dr Manie van Dyk (DA MP): "In the report it's very clear that theft within SAA baggage has increased from 9 000 incidents in 2005/2006 to 12 000 in 2006/2007."

Dr Manie van Dyk is a Member of Parliament's Portfolio Committee on Public Enterprises.
He says the report shows that baggage pilfering has risen by 39.5 percent since 2003. The cost to the taxpayer is more than R 81-million.

Andrew: "If you do the maths on that and they were paying out US$20 a kilogram that would equate to a huge amount of baggage loss. That is a huge amount if you divide that and do the maths."

Devi: "Despite the fact that the Parliamentary Report is based on SAA's statistics, when approached for an interview SAA declined. They referred us to ACSA, the airports company."

General Manager at OR Tambo, Chris Hlekane, says improved security measures have been implemented over the past two years.

Chris Hlekane (General Manager: OR Tambo International Airport): "What we did is went to the Airline Commission and said these are the initiatives we are doing. We have a baggage manager who looks at the issues around these incidents. Let's work together."

ACSA has also awarded two new baggage-handling licences in the past month

Chris: "I can confirm that we have gone on tender for the ground handling licence. If I can mention that Menzies and BidAir are the new ground handlers effective from next year."

Access control at the airport has also been tightened. This year workers at OR Tambo were caught in 154 incidents of pilfering.

Chris: "Over and above that there was a syndicate of 12 that together with the SAPS were arrested for this period of 2007. So it indicates that the elements that we have put in place have worked."

But, at the end of the day this has not deterred the criminals.

Devi: "How do you explain an almost 40 percent in increase in baggage pilfering then?"

Chris: "Those stats are global stats. Whether they happened here or elsewhere those are things that we need to fine-tune and understand. Because to our understanding they are not specific to OR Tambo."

On the other hand, baggage theft that has been reported elsewhere, are not included in the stats.

Manie: "The 12 000 incidents that were reported do not include other domestic airlines. Also not included are international flights that depart from South Africa, because those crimes are only discovered when they land abroad."

Devi: "Some airlines don't make use of the officially appointed baggage handling companies and at least one of them has seen positive results."

Gidon Novick is the joint CEO of Comair, which operates BA and Kulula. They make use of their own handling company.

Gidon Novick (CEO: Comair): "As soon as you have one entity taking responsibility you can fix the problem. When you have a situation where nobody is prepared to say I will sort this out then I think you are going to get this continuous blame and this continuous situation that does not improve."

In the past three months the company was able to bring down their figures for baggage pilfering from five in 5 000 to one in 5 000. They have also started to bypass the ACSA sorting room at OR Tambo by taking bags directly from international flights onto domestic ones.

Gidon: "Being in control of that process from start to finish has eliminated the pilferage on those bags."

Devi: "By bypassing the sorting room what happened to those bags? Were any of them pilfered?"

Gidon: "None at all. It has been a great success."

But there is another point of concern. OR Tambo is a national key point, yet criminals have been able to infiltrate it freely.

Manie: "If baggage can be broken into to remove items, it can also be broken into to place items inside, like explosives. So the question is how safe are our passengers from the time that a plane takes off?"

Kathy: "I was really concerned that somebody could have put something into his case and when he got to the other side they could have arrested him because he is South African. The second thing was what about a bomb. I mean we are talking about all these terrorists running around. When I spoke to them they said there was no chance that it could have happened. I said if he got to the other side and everything and been removed surely somebody could have put something in."
IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER:
While every attempt has been made to ensure this transcript or summary is accurate, Carte Blanche or its agents cannot be held liable for any claims arising out of inaccuracies caused by human error or electronic fault. This transcript was typed from a transcription recording unit and not from an original script, so due to the possibility of mishearing and the difficulty, in some cases, of identifying individual speakers, errors cannot be ruled out.
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