by Rod Hughes

Never mind asking those helpful baggage handlers at the doors of Juan Santamaria International Airport what the standard rate is for lugging your stuff to your car or to a taxi. There isn’t a standard anything.

The daily newspaper La Nacion today revealed that baggage handlers are completely without supervision either by Civil Aviation or by the airport concessionaires, Alterra. The travelor must negotiate his own price (usually between $1 and $10, depending on the amount of baggage and the avarice of the handler.)

And forget using one of those free carts in the airport—they are not allowed outside for fear of theft and they cost $200 a piece to replace. The result is confusion at the exit to Immigration, a traffic jam of carts.

That the situation is not more chaotic and that more passengers are not cheated is a tribute to Costa Rican worker good will and the two companies Sky Cap and ABC who hire the handlers. Sky Cap spokesmen say that an indirect supervision comes with the $1,800 per month the Aterra airport administration charges for the physical space the handlers take up outside the airport doors. if they don’t do it right, they could be exiled

Sky Cap, an association of handlers, employs 80 workers and carries an insurance policy in case a cart scratches a car in the parking lot. Its chief has 17 years of experience with airport baggage handling. All in all, as sometimes lax as the system may seem in theory. it is a tribute to free enterprise that the service is reasonable and reasonably efficient.