Theft from airline passengers' baggage, rude airport check-in staff and long ticket queues rang alarm bells at a meeting of Parliament's transport portfolio committee on Wednesday.

Pilferage from baggage at South Africa's airports had become a "very serious problem", committee chairperson Jeremy Cronin said at the end of a briefing by the department to MPs on the preparedness of airports and airlines for the 2010 Soccer World Cup.

He attributed the problem to casual labourers employed by baggage handling companies at airports.

Cronin also criticised local carrier South African Airways for its treatment of those trying to buy tickets to fly with the airline.

"SAA is dreadful... with long queues," he said.

Responding, transport department civil aviation branch chief director Anwar Gany said "casualisation" of labour was one of the biggest challenges at airports, and something he would like to see stopped.

From an operational point of view, it was also a very serious security threat.

He undertook to take the matter up with the Airports Company of SA (Acsa).

"I hope this is fixed before 2010"

New licensing procedures for baggage handling companies, set to take effect on March 1 next year, would place the onus on the company to act against baggage theft because renewal of the operating license was contingent on no or very little pilferage.

Gany also said there was a "morale" problem at SAA.

"I hope this is fixed before 2010... because it's the forefront of the industry. You don't make contact with the CEO of the airline, but you certainly make contact with the check-in agent, and they give an impression of what the country's like."

He said he would take the matter up with SAA, and ask them to act on this with "utmost urgency".

Cronin responded: "I hope it's more than just hope that things will be better by 2010... sometimes there's rudeness as well, probably born of the morale issue that you talked about, and also maybe because it's a few people dealing with long queues."

He said the problem was "quite serious and it's getting worse".

It appeared to stem from under-staffing. Cronin said a little bit of management and marshalling of queues at airports would help solve the problem.

Gany said the problem lay with management at the airports.

"If you have proper operational managers on the shop floor that co-ordinate and know exactly what needs to be done we wouldn't be having this discussion."

He said there was a shortage of operational managers at airports.

Sapa

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