First night back was Sunday night. Already distinctly breezy by the time I got out of my car car in the managers car park near the north security entrance. Went through the deserted security and out airside where I spied my 3 1/2 ton baggage tug/personal transport and drove it the 3 minutes to the office/crew room. Wind really gusty now, quite hard to open the main door against the wind.
Pop into the the "big boss" office and discuss how the day has been been so far/what I need to know etc. Usual shower of shite - delayed flights, staff calling in sick for the cleaning jobs tonight. I resign myself to another shite-fest. Tonight, as has been the case for for most of the last 2 shifts, I am on my own due to Duty Managers holidays. It's about 17:45.
I take the outgoing Duty Manager back to the car park and bid him farewell, wind really picking up now.
Back to the office to see my cleaning allocator, a lovely Lithuanian called "Z" busy on the computer setting up for the night. I speak to the last remaining baggage controller asking how things are and he tells me a number of inbound flights are delayed and he wont be able to send them out as they arrive after he leaves - I already knew this and don't mind. It's nice to do some baggage stuff, rather than aircraft cleaning stuff. I compile and print off all the various reports/forms I need for Monday and then go about welcoming my cleaning staff as they start arriving 18:30ish. All like drowned rats - the previous 30 minutes have turned reaaly nasty and the wind is howling. When they are finally all in, I give them a briefing on the night's work schedule and implore them to be ultra careful due to the conditions. One by one, the teams are all given their PDAs, van keys & paperwork and set off. I bid "Z" farewell for now and head off to the baggage hall.
The baggage controller looks wiped out - I look at the screen showing our flight departure/arrival details and it's all turned red. A quick check on FlightRadar24 shows a number of flights diverting to Luton/Stanstead/Charles de Gaulle. He can do nothing more so I packed him off early and took over, with only 3 remaining baggage boys, all of whom were leaving at 21:00. At 20:10 we had our first offical flight cancellation, so I arranged for the bags we had received to be returned to baggage reclaim for the passengers to collect. 4 more left, fate unknown. I rang the Operations manager to find out what was happening to these flights - cancelled? Parked-up elsewhere and returning when the weather improves? What. She didn't know. For the next hour, I get phone calls asking for individual bags to be returned to baggage reclaim for passengers who had decided not to travel - very annoying having to pull a baggage cart apart to find an individual bag and then take it 400 yards to reclaim. All my remaining baggage boys have gone, despite me offering double pay to stay for 2 hours. Poofs.
About 21:30, confirmation that the Belfast was going, using a spare aircraft - I took the bags to it and then received confirmation that 2 flights were cancelled - took all those bags to reclaim and placed them on the reclaim belt, ensuring they were upright and handles faced outwards for easy retrieval. Proper like. Back to the baggage hall and finished off setting up for the next morning, only 1 flight, the Lisbon, left. It was still sitting in Paris. Eventually, it left Paris and arrived at Gatwick about 23:50 - I took the bags out to it and finally got back to the office at 00:10.
That's when things turned reeeeaaaaallllllllyyyyyy shite...
And that was just the first night
