Ryanair yesterday brought a legal challenge to a demand that it mechanise part of its baggage handling service to cut the risk of back injury to workers.
The National Authority for Occupational Safety and Health has served an improvement notice on Ryanair requiring it to introduce a truck-mounted conveyor belt for loading bags from luggage carts into the forward holds of its planes.
At present, this is done by hand which the authority says presents a risk of back injury, particularly in the event of an accidental collision during the procedure.
The conveyor belt system, known as the Wompo, is used by all other airlines at Dublin Airport.
Ryanair claims its system is not only as safe as the Wompo but possibly safer because only one person needs to be in the forward hold to receive the baggage from another worker on the ground. Under the Wompo system, two staff have to be in the hold and must work on their knees because of the confined space. With its system only one needs to be in the hold while another hands the bags in.
It also claims that with Wompo another vehicle has to be brought into a terminal and this increases the risk of collisions, increases the noise levels and does not reduce the number of staff who handle baggage. Since Ryanair began operating at Dublin Airport, there had been no injuries to staff.
In the Dublin District Court yesterday, the company began an appeal against the authority's improvement notice, believed to be the first such challenge under the 1989 Health Safety and Welfare at Work Act.
The case was adjourned until November when an ergonomics expert who has examined different baggage handling methods at a number of airports will give evidence for Ryanair.