On 2016-02-27 15:01, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 2/27/2016 5:11 PM, Joerg wrote:
On 2016-02-24 22:40, W. Wesley Groleau wrote:

Either they drove over it with a heavy vehicle or someone else's luggage
is severely damaged from being pressed that hard into my Brompton.


Or the "union toss".

My wife, daughter and I did a 3 week (plus) tour of Ireland back in the
1990s. I definitely wanted to take our bikes, so I procured bike boxes
and did the disassembly to get bikes and bags to fit. The boxes were
prominently marked "FRAGILE" and "THIS END UP."

We arrived jetlagged at Dublin's airport, and got to watch the luggage
truck bringing everyone's bags to the terminal. Our three bikes were
stacked flat, one on top of another, on the roof of the truck's cab. So
much for "THIS END UP."

Then we saw a worker open a door to the cab, stand on the door sill and
push the boxes off the roof. One after another, they landed on the
small end of the boxes. So much for "FRAGILE."


That's one type of union toss. I've once seen my stuff being chucked out
of an airliner right onto the tarmac ... THWACK.


I don't think airline luggage handlers get any bonuses for being gentle.


They are unionized so can't be fired, and they know it. I've had the
same with UPS where a guy tossed shipments over the backyard gate onto
our concrete basketball court. One package was an expensive piece of
equipment. During a serious conversation with a manager it turned out
that disciplining those guys is not very easy because there is a union.
So I use Fedex for my shipments. Now that's not to diss UPS drivers in
general as there are definitely nice ones, including for our
neighborhood. But this union protection goes way too far, so I "voted
with my feet".


Dublin Airport was nice enough to have bike assembly stations right
there, including some tools, although I used the ones I had brought. But
I was amazed to find that the bikes were not damaged.


Nice. I never saw such an assembly station.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/