Security "Shambles" at Belfast International - Who Is To Blame?

From a guest contributor

So, another day and yet another Belfast Live report (and accompanying slew of tweets) brings us tales of “stress, aggressive atmosphere, chaos, shambles and crisis” that seems to have been the theme tune at Belfast International Airport for nearly a decade now.

The Northern Ireland travelling public must frankly feel that this circus ought to be condemned at this stage!

Time after time the same exasperated apologies are issued by the airport’s managers telling everyone how these meltdowns are completely unacceptable and trying to deflect the reason for the problems onto anyone or anything they can blame rather than themselves.

The usual line goes that Vinci (the French owners of the airport) are investing £100 million in airport facilities which will in time magically melt away the problems. We looked at the maths behind this claim in a recent post.

However, it is clear that the one thing the airport has actually invested in still doesn’t work! Sure, the building’s facade has changed with some shiny and very long overdue new fixtures, but it is abundantly clear that the security “shambles” which has long blighted the place is far from any resolution.

So, where actually does the fault lie here?

Well, if you’ve got enough security channels and modern equipment, yet you still manage to have endless negative publicity around security, it has to be the fault of the process. And it does appear that the major issue relates to staffing, which gets put down to apparently surprising but frequent occurrences of staff sickness.

However the reality emerging from multiple sources is that this is not due to bugs or even expedient absenteeism, it is simply due to the fact that the pay and working conditions for security staff are not competitive enough to keep employees, meaning not enough staff are retained on the books to open any more than a few of the security channels at peak times, plain and simple. As one commenter on Twitter put it, even Burger King pays more.

The next logical question is, who is responsible for this situation?

The security provider (Wilson James) is appointed by the airport to deliver the required levels of security across the site. They are paid basically what the airport is prepared to pay them for this service, and security levels apply on that basis. So, if two lanes are open and chaos occurs, it is because that is all the airport will pay for.

Unfortunately, it may be the case that the airport have no other options apart from Wilson James. It seems that there was a legal dispute with the previous operator (ICTS) in 2018 which meant that the security contract went to the market shortly thereafter. Allegedly there were only two bidders (Mitie and Wilson James) and Mitie chose not to progress - perhaps because they provided security at Belfast City Airport at the time. This likely left Wilson James as the only bidder, which would be a terrible place to be if you are the purchaser of a service.

Given the airport’s track record of employment related claims of so many types, it is perhaps obvious why they chose not to deploy an in house security service.

And from a customer point of view, a monopolist operating the airport with a monopolist providing security is not going to result in customer experience being anybody’s priority, including airport management.

So who are the airport management?

There are five on the airport company Board - Emmanuel Robert Menanteau (Chairman and Vinci Director), Remi Guy Ferdinand Maumon-Falcon de Longevialle (Vinci Chief Financial Officer), Pierre Hugues Paul Louis Schmit (Vinci Director), Daniel Owens (Chief Executive Officer), Benjamin Souq (Chief Financial Officer and Secretary). Mr Souq and Mr Romain Olive (Chief Operating Officer) are the day-to-day decision makers working alongside the Chief Executive. These are the people who decide the level of service received by those booking to travel through the airport. Yet three of them reside permanently in Paris, Daniel Owens lives in London and makes an appearance in Belfast a couple of days a week, whilst the other two senior executives have been seconded for an interim period from Paris to Belfast.

The raises serious questions about the capability of, and the time spent by, the airport’s key decision makers. An upcoming post will examine what appears to be a “hollowing out” of expertise at the airport in recent years.

Despite the persistent and well-documented service failings due to lack of adequate investment in staff, recent financial results set out how Vinci have withdrawn a £38 million dividend against Belfast International Airport last year, despite this plain, urgent need for investment, while the Airport Chief Executive has also recently reported how Vinci are seeking financial support from local government to pursue airlines to fly US services from Belfast. It is to be hoped if such routes ever did open that tourists would actually be able to make it through airport security!

Vinci boasts of being the world’s leading private airport operator. It’s hard to imagine how they could showcase Belfast International Airport front and centre of that swagger, but the irony is it is they who are the overseers and who continue to make it such an endlessly unattractive proposition.

Photograph © @peterbland8 https://x.com/peterbland8/status/1855167521323725221