A CHARTER flight of national football team supporters to Central America for the qualifying game between Jamaica and Honduras will take place after all.
Jamaica, who lead Zone C of the Football Confederation (FC) World Cup qualifiers, are scheduled to meet second-placed Honduras at the National Stadium in Tegucigalpa tomorrow.
Last week Friday organisers of the charter were informed through Air Jamaica that the flight would not take place or that the passengers would not be able to depart the country at the desired time. It emerged then that due to poor lighting at the Tegucigalpa Airport and the fact that it is surrounded by mountains, the Civil Aviation Authority issued a directive that flights should take place no later than a certain time.
Checks with Howard McIntosh, a member of the Jamaica Football Federation Finance Committee and the man saddled with the task of arranging the charter, proved that they have been given the all clear to fly.
"Everything is clear now," McIntosh said yesterday. "We are scheduled to leave Jamaica on Sunday at 10:am with a total of 150 people and we come back at 9:00 p.m.
"Basically what we had learnt at the end of last week was that the flight had to depart Tegucigalpa at a particular time and we sought help from the Honduran Embassy and Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Football Federation there.
"We are going to be leaving Honduras immediately after the match and we have been promised police escort to make sure that we make the time for the flight."
McIntosh said that after learning that the charter was oversubscribed, efforts were made to get a second plane which proved impossible.
"In terms of getting a second plane we never even advertised as after we made the announcement of the charter on the Monday night. It was oversubscribed on the Tuesday and we had some discussions with Air Jamaica with the possibility of having another plane which they said was impossible," he said.
Another charter is planned for Jamaica's next game against El Salvador in November but the size of that one is dependent on the success of this one.
"This is a test case for all of us," he said. "We are very happy to work with Air Jamaica and we have gotten overall co-operation from everyone and hopefully we will have a good result."
By Nodley Wright
Staff Reporter
