No Aircraft
Other / Unknown
Ground Event / Encounter Other / Unknown
General None Reported / Taken
Staffing; Company Policy; Human Factors
Scales are a trip hazzard and hard on back lifting bags off the ground at the ticket counter.
The re-design of the lobby area is not ergonomically correct. We are daily straining our backs tagging and lifting bags up to 70 lbs off floor level to a bag belt 15 inches high. There is not always an agent available to help us with baggage as they are daily short of staff. We are experiencing back pain on a daily basis since the remodel. This will surely cause permanent damage to our spines. We have had the new setup for approximately 3 weeks and there are already four agents injured. The new scales at the counters causes us as well as our customers to trip on them constantly. When passengers place their baggage on the scales; they step on the edge of the scale causing the weight to reflect a heavy bag. Also the new monitors are placed much farther away to our right causing not only eye strain but neck strain as well. My contact lenses were designed for a monitor 15 to 20 inches away from my face. The new monitors are approximately 24 inches away and the applications are sized for a 15 inch screen. My prescription glasses do not work as well. These applications should be enlarged and programmed for a 21 inch screen. The security aspect of this design is also frightening. There is not enough of a division between customers and agents. Passengers will reach over and grab their boarding passes before you are finished or if angry; will get frighteningly close. This occurs especially on the end positions as a divider was not constructed as before. Passengers have come up behind us to either look at our screens or grab their luggage because they forgot to remove an article.
Three airline ticket agents contend that the redesign of the baggage scales to near floor level causes a personal safety issue for the agents if passengers chose to walk behind the counter. The additional distance that bags need to be lifted to the bag belt is also causing back strain.