At Ryanair-handler Skytanking at Eindhoven Airport, employees have no participation in their schedule, they have to work overtime regularly and the staff is scolded. A former employee explains Omroep Brabant how he has worked himself at the company ‘Broken.’ When he reported sick, they were threatened with dismissal.
When Skytanking started arranging the luggage handling for Ryanair, Simon* joined the company. “There was first a clear grid system. I worked three mornings in a row, followed by three evenings and then I had three days off,” he says.
“But we were unable to get the grilles around, so we were asked if we could work extra. Often also on days when you had already played a shift.” Simon agreed. “I was regularly working from half past seven in the morning until nine in the evening.”
According to him, staff who did not do that were thwarted. According to him, they were scheduled for “the” annoying “early services and for heavy lugging.”
“Sometimes you lift 500 pieces of luggage on your own during a service.”
Simon further says that employees were threatened and scolded by their managers. “Colleagues were scolded for cancer-turk, cancer this and cancer that.” Even, according to Simon, the handler does not adhere to the guidelines of the maximum permitted number of luggage units that a luggage employee can lift. “You can officially lift a maximum of 250 pieces of luggage per day as a luggage employee. With sky tanking you can easily exceed that number. Sometimes you lift 500 luggage on your own during a service.”
The staff shortages persisted and employees got less and less about their schedules. “You will be scheduled when they want you to be there,” says Simon. “I was told a day before my service that there would not be enough employees the next day and I had to work overtime.”
“They made sure that I worked myself.”
Simon worked so much that he suffered from a burnout and ended up in depression. “She made sure that I worked myself,” he says. When he had reported sick, dismissal was threatened. “But they did not implement that at the time. That is not allowed if you are sick.”
Simon was eventually fired for another reason. The former employee does not accept this on the advice of his lawyer.
Employees of Skytanking previously opened a booklet about the working conditions at the handler at Omroep Brabant. According to them, the workload had consequences for safety during work. “A colleague of mine was not trained to drive a staircase, but had to do this from a manager. If he had caused an accident, he would not have been insured,” one of them said.
“The company also expects you to be a doll that can move from one plane to the other in five minutes,” the employee said.
That corresponds to what Simon tells on Wednesday. He didn’t have breaks on busy days. “If there were planes, you just worked on until everything was arranged.” You couldn’t take a rest between the planes. On quiet days the breaks were a little longer. “But you usually had to go through one plane to the other. Especially if no other staff were available.”
*The real name of the former employee is known at Omroep Brabant. He remains anonymous for privacy reasons.
Headache file
Since April last year, Skytanking has been responsible for the passenger process for Ryanair flights. This makes the company responsible for checking in the luggage, supervising passengers and loading and clearing the luggage.
The Labor Inspectorate conducted research into the company in 2024 and gave a warning to improve working conditions. Employees of the company opened a booklet in August last year about the circumstances at the airport at Omroep Brabant.
Last month, the FNV trade union concluded after a survey among staff that there is an anxiety culture among employees at Skytanking. According to employees, speed often goes beyond safety. In addition, many people fall out due to the towering workload.
For the management of Eindhoven Airport, the results of the FNV study were the reason to talk to Skytanking. But that conversation has not yet yielded anything.