The shortage at the airlines is trickling downward too! I'm a DAL ramper at LAX, and the classes of new hires are coming one after the other.

Problem is, the gross inefficiencies of the hiring process (1 month from job offer to class date) and scattered management of what agents are available (I spend an average of 2 hours of my 8-hour shift sitting in the RCC waiting to see if another crew needs a hand) make it much worse than it could be.

It's true though, some agents just do not care and will not assist with another flight, even if they are right there. My salary works out to about $10.10/hr.

Uncaring is not ubiquitous, however, and just because the guy in the picture was kicking it in the bin for a while doesn't mean he was slacking. I often have to wait five or ten minutes between the time I offload the inbounds and the time I put the outbounds on.

We also desperately need ground equipment! We had to take a delay on a MCO flight today because we had three tugs die on us, and there are no spares.