MIAMI— Because the City of Miami is such a tourist destination, the Miami International Airport’s airline footprint is outpacing many American airports even as the aging point of entry continues to struggle with infrastructure woes. Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava has been trying to fix the airport's problems and recently announced that the broken MIA SkyTrain was fixed in record time and is finally operational.
Mayor Cava scored a small victory by fixing the derailed SkyTrain, but MIA still faces serious issues with customer service and overall customer experience.
In a previous story, we mentioned how ‘American Airlines, which has the largest presence of any other airline at MIA, has reverted to hiring from within to address other questionable airport services like the offloading of baggage and basic airplane cleaning, including lavatory upkeep.’
Every day passengers continue to endure instances of frustration at airports like MIA due to poor or lacking ground services, particularly when it comes to their personal belongings.
MIA has arguably one of the slowest offloading of baggage services.
In looking closer at the problems MIA has faced, and still faces, third-party companies hired by the airport and airlines appear to be at the center of the controversy and could be seen as the problem overall.
While several companies service MIA, one that sticks out because they have been the center of controversy and in the news, is Eulen America (Grupo Eulen), which was fired by the county in 2019 for having “poor work conditions,” according to the Miami Herald.
Eulen was shut down for allegedly allowing workers to use “broken equipment,” go without water breaks, and even drive around in cockroach-infested trucks.
Since its firing, Eulen quickly tried to do a 180-degree turn to fix its image, and after the company agreed to let workers unionize and invest in infrastructure upkeep to make the workplace more humane.
Some of the same issues still exist at MIA, and while the scrutiny over the company's business practices in Miami-Dade County has quieted somewhat, Eulen America appears to have similar, far-reaching issues.
Just north of MIA at Broward County’s Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, similar labor problems have plagued Eulen.
In 2019, Eulen was under fire for apparently firing have of the wheelchair services workforce.
After taking over the contract to run wheelchair services, Eulen was accused of firing 26 of the 50 employees.
The Democratic-controlled County Commission came down hard on Eulen, with one former commissioner calling them “the worst.”
"Of all the folks out there," said former Vice Mayor Dale Holness. “Probably Eulen is the worst in terms of complying with the rules and regulations that we set forth and treatment of these employees."
Like we stated, there are several companies that provide services to airports and airlines across Florida and the country, but Eulen could be seen as being the most compromised considering the dozens of lawsuits that they have been saddled with for alledgedly breaching contracts, inhumane working conditions, and overall negligence.
