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13 April, 2022

Sydney Airport staff offered $50 Woolies gift cards to help stem airport chaos

Man in uniform standing at counter at checking point and watching at monitor with x-ray of luggage.

In a desperate attempt to fill shifts, Sydney Airport security staff have been offered $50 Woolies gift cards incentives to work over the next two weeks to deal with long queues.

Certis Group, a Singaporean company that holds the security contract at the airport, is offering its employees incentives.

This comes after passengers have had to wait in long queues at the airport due to a combination of factors including staff shortages and the Easter travel rush.

The $50 “employee incentive” scheme will be available to staff members who work on particular days over the next fortnight.

“In recognition of the difficult circumstances you are facing, from [Tuesday] we will be issuing Woolworths WISH gift cards for each completed shift to all staff involved in passenger screening, CBS [checked bag screening], curbside management and protective services at Sydney Airport,” an email to employees said.

“We hope this can help your daily expenses, show our commitment to you, and encourage your continued efforts.”

Security staff who work today, tomorrow and Tuesday to Friday next week are eligible to receive a $50 voucher.

Although incentives have not been offered for weekends or Easter public holidays.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, staff are paid between $23.27 and $26.57 an hour, which is lower than that of employees in identical roles at Melbourne and Brisbane airports.

“They struggle to attract guards because they have the lowest wages on the eastern seaboard with regards to aviation security,” United Workers Union spokesman Damien Davie told the Herald.

“These people are working on similar wages to what adults are on at McDonald’s or Coles. They’re charged with keeping the travelling public safe.”

One employee took to Twitter and asked for people to be patient with airport staff after a long break from working at such intensity.

As someone who works at Sydney Airport, please be kind to us, we are trying to get you to where you need/want to be. Short staffed due to being dead quiet for like 1.5 years and then suddenly going full speed once the borders opened.
We get it, it’s hard for us too
— louis (@louis20016) April 8, 2022

The long wait times that passengers are facing has been described as a “perfect storm” of traffic numbers picking up and the now-gone close-contact rules leading to staff shortages by Sydney Airport’s CEO Geoff Culbert.

Qantas CEO, Alan Joyce, said that before COVID only 10 per cent of passengers required rescreening, but that has increased to 30 per cent.

Travel Weekly has contacted Sydney Airport for more information.

Image: iStock/EvgeniyShkolenko

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Certis Group employee incentive Geoff Culbert sydney airport United Workers Union Woolies gift cards