Pay dispute may lengthen airport lines this spring at MSP
A company hired to ease traveler hassles at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport has been fired and airport officials are moving to fill the void as the spring vacation surge approaches.
Tennessee-based PrimeFlight won a $400,000 contract last year to provide managers to help steer people into the right lines. Metropolitan Airports Commission officials thought those workers would earn as much as $16 an hour. They get about $11.
The pay gap became a sore point — airport work and wages are hot button issues right now — that led to the company's firing.
PrimeFlight will stop service on March 4, just in time for spring break. On Tuesday, the Metropolitan Airports Commission OK'd a standby plan. Commissioners agreed to hire the same contractor that provides the airport's curbside porter service to help manage the wait lines.
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The jobs will pay about $11 an hour, about what PrimeFlight was paying, and possibly more.
"It's going to be crazy in March, as it always is, and April too, to a certain degree. And if it takes commissioners being out there running the lines, we're going to be running the lines to make sure people move a little more quicker and safer," commission Chairman Dan Boivin said.
PrimeFlight didn't respond to an inquiry about the matter. According to the Metropolitan Airports Commission, PrimeFlight said the pay difference was the result of a mistake in its proposal.
The wage dispute, though, foreshadows a bigger battle coming over workers at the airport.
Voters around the Seattle airport passed an ordinance setting a $15 an hour minimum wage in 2013, which stoked a nationwide battle over the minimum wage.
In December, protesters shut down road access to the Twin Cities airport, saying many maintenance workers there were earning an $8 minimum hourly wage and deserved more. The commission also passed a sick leave mandate for airport workers that took effect in January.
MAC officials say they need more information on pay at the airport, but many agree the issue needs to be addressed in some way.
Airports Commissioner Pat Harris said the commission needs to set a wage policy, rather than deal with it on a case-by-case basis, like the queue management contract.
"We have to have this living wage discussion, and get that on the books, one way or the other," Harris said.
The airport is about to kick off an $18 million upgrade to its security checkpoint system at its main airport terminal, Terminal 1. That's expected to mean shorter lines, although it won't be done before the spring travel rush.
Flyers last March were warned to be at the airport more than two hours before their flights.
Back then, airlines had staff in the ticketing area to help speed up lines. But the airlines stopped that service last summer. So airport officials decided to outsource the work until the new checkpoints are done.
"The reality is, in 14 months, we are projecting that we will have the construction done on the new checkpoints, where we won't have a need for the queue management assistance because there'll be one of two choices, either go to the left or the right and process through," Metropolitan Airports Commission CEO Jeff Hamiel said earlier this week. "We do need it for the next 14 months while people are deciding which line to go to."
In the meantime, be ready for longer waits until those new checkpoints are done.