Light Transport; Low Wing; 2 Turboprop Eng
Flight Attendant Current
Time Pressure; Workload; Training / Qualification; Communication Breakdown
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Weight And Balance; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Security; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural FAR
Staffing; Procedure; Human Factors; Company Policy
While boarding flight in FLL a passenger came on the plane with an oversized back pack. I asked him if there was anything in his case that would break. He said no. I asked him if I could give it to the guys on the ground to gate check it and he said' I tried to give it to the ground crew but they did not want to take it.' His wife had the same size bag as well. She too was told to take it on. I look over and the guy next to the luggage cart is facing away from the pax picking his hair out with a pick not watching the Pax at all. Two others were on their phone.  I noticed that every person in line was being told to bring their bags on. There are only 3 bags already on the luggage cart and all of them have green tags. Knowing from experience that these bags will not fit in the cabin and it would end up delaying the flight when I have to give them back to the ground crew after the passengers have fully boarded and cargo was closed I stopped them from coming on and told them to give them to the ground crew. They refused to take them. Keep in mind that during boarding; the stairs are full of PAX. There is no way to hand bags back down during boarding so oversized bags that will not fit in an overhead bin or under a seat; pile up in the emergency exit row (a safety hazard) until the stairs are clear and they can be handed down to the ground crew. The ground crew does not have name tags so we do not know their names.As I continue to board more pax tell me that their bags were refused by the ground crew. I asked the pax if they were given a reason. The last pax said; they told me they were shorthanded and did not have enough people to load them on the plane. There were 6 people on the ground; 3 standing under the jet bridge in the shade and we were the only flight boarding. How many people does it take to load checked bags? They just did not want to do the work.As the last few pax board there was some time in between to pass bags back down to the stairs. I handed a total of 6 oversized bags back down the stairs. At this time I notice that they are not putting green tags on the carryon's I just gave them. I used to work on the ramp. I know the procedure. I inform the ground crew that this is a security issue; a safety issue; as well as a weight and balance issue. I inform him that if the bags are put in Cargo without a green tag then they have to be marked down as a full sized bag as they are technically not gate checks. I told him that this would mean that the weight of those bags would have to be 30 Lbs not 20 Lbs. His was response was to fudge the load form. I was shocked. He said we will just write them down as 20 pounds no one will know. We can just change the report to say they are gate checks.... what is the big deal. I said 'that would make that paperwork false. Gate check have a different weight than regular checked luggage.' He said we are still going to mark them as gate checks and you can tell the ground crew that it is OK to give them to the pax when they get off in Tampa. I said 'NO; that is a security issue. They cannot be given to their owners plane side in Tampa; and since they have no checked luggage tag they cannot be put out at baggage claim with the regular checked luggage.' He then responded. Well; we are all out of green tags out here and we would have to walk all the way back into ops to get some. My response was 'Then do it! In the interest of security and the safety of all the passengers on this plane we are not leaving this gate with unmarked luggage in the cargo. Who knows what is it those bags. If they have no green tag they could have come the ticket counter; the tags fell off and there could be a weapon in them. They cannot go in the back without the proper tags to identify them. Call the gate and have them bring you some green tags.' His response SHOCKED ME!His response was ; 'No; that is not my job; You tell your f*@#ing company if they want us to put green tags on somethingthey can go buy enough and bring them down here to us.' Finally someone brought green tags from the gate. At that time both my captain and I witnessed the ground crew refuse to take the green tags. They would not take the tags from the gate agent. It appeared they told him to go down to the luggage cart to put on the green tags because they were not going to do it. Finally one of the few hard working rampers took the tags; walked over to the cart; put the tags on; they were loaded according to security protocol and the flight left on time without further incident other than passengers thanking me for looking out for their personals. I thought we were all working together as a team and one company. Now I see what the problem is in FLL. They do not think they have to follow rules because they are not part of this airline. This is going to become a bigger issue if someone grabs a gun out of a bag that they were given from the back with no tags on them. Technically it is not my duty to do anything about this however they people on the ramp are not doing their duty which leaves it to the rest of us who do not want to die to keep an eye out for it. If they are not going to do it someone has to. As soon as management goes home to save money on overtime they run wild on the ramp. It is not safe. Better oversight; managers that work past 5 and TRAINING! If I know the regs I'm gonna bet others watching us board our flights from the FAA or TSA know them. This is a future problem that we have a chance to address before someone is hurt or we are fined. I thought we were all working together as a team and one company. Now I see what the problem is in FLL. They do not think they have to follow rules because they are not part of this airline. This is going to become a bigger issue if someone grabs a gun out of a bag that they were given from the back with no tags on them. Technically it is not my duty to do anything about this or to watch out for it but luckily I do. The people on the ramp are not doing their duty which leaves it to the rest of us who do not want be fined; grounded or killed to keep an eye out for it. Knives; guns; chemicals etc. are put in counter checked bags. THIS IS SERIOUS. It is not just about a silly little green tag. Perhaps they are not trained to understand why this is so important. If that is the case then whose fault is it that they are not trained to know these things. If they are not going to do it someone has to but if I am doing their job too I might miss something I need to do on mine. As soon as management goes home to save money on overtime they run wild on the ramp. It is not safe. I am bringing this to your attention because it has happened on numerous occasions where the ground crew is too tired; has no water on the ramp to drink so they are weak; hot; simply do not want to load bags into cargo or do not want to walk back to get the tags needed to do gate checks. It has never been this bad and they have never refused to go get those tags before but it is getting worse. It has happened at least 6 times in the last month.I will be sending a copy of this report to our cabin safety inspector to make sure it is addressed from a passenger safety perspective.
A Flight Attendant reported that ramp personnel were not accepting oversized bags during boarding. When confronted with policy and FAR violations; the lack of ramp management oversight and lack of ramp employee concern for their actions' consequences was cause for concern.