More personnel promised for Miami

Miami International is to benefit from more passport control agents to handle its long immigration lines: the announcement comes from the US Customs and Border Protection department.

The actual number has not been disclosed yet but the additional staffing has been promised by the end of September 2015. In all, some 2,000 additional agents will be deployed across 44 ports in 18 states.

Miami is one of four Florida ports that will benefit from the staffing boost, according to Greg Chin, an airport spokesman. The others are Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International, Orlando International and Port Canaveral.

Staff happy with five year contract

Alaska Airlines’ 2,500 clerical, office and passenger service employees, who are represented by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, have ratified a new five-year contract. The contract was approved by 62% of those who voted.

“Ratification of this contract demonstrates the great strength and commitment our COPS employees have for our customers and our company. It further shows our frontline employees’ dedication to maintaining Alaska’s position as an industry leader in customer service,” commented Jeff Butler, Vice President of Airport Operations and Customer Service.

The contract includes pay increases and job security provisions, amongst other improvements.

New shared-use lounge opens

Airport Lounge Development, the leading US independent shared-use lounge developer, announced earlier this month that it had opened the first and only shared-use airport lounge at Phoenix Sky Harbor International airport, called The Club at PHX. This marks group’s sixth club, which goes to reinforce its position as the largest portfolio of independently-operated, shared-use lounges within the US.

DAL cedes cleaning contract to Air Serv

Delta has played down talk of any direct redundancies resulting from the change of cleaning contract at Minneapolis-St Paul airport. In mid-April the carrier’s subsidiary, DAL Global Services, said that its existing contract would be taken over by Atlanta-based Air Serv, which already provides wheelchair, cart driving and skycap services at the Twin Cities airport for Delta. The change will apparently affect 400 or so full-time workers: about 100 are expected to remain with DGS but work elsewhere in the country, while a further 200 will move over to Air Serv in the Twin Cities. The remainder, about 100, had at the time of writing not expressed an interest in future employment with either DAL or Air Serv.