By Janet Silvera and Teino Evans, Gleaner Writers
WESTERN BUREAU:
CHAOS REIGNED on Friday afternoon at the Sangster International Airport as several Air Jamaica passengers stood for hours waiting on the arrival of delayed bags. Others were forced to search the Customs hall in a desperate bid to find bags that never arrived.
It was also frayed nerves and short tempers at both the domestic terminal where the Delayed Baggage Hall is temporarily located and the arrivals terminal's Customs hall, where passengers lamented over lost luggage, inadequate information and what they termed impolite attitude by some employees of the national airline.
Elma Bernard, 82, complained that she travelled on the airline on Wednesday, December 17, but when she arrived in Montego Bay her bags could not be found.
However, two days later, she said she received a call from an airport representative advising her to pick up her bags.
She had spent over five hours at the Delayed Baggage Hall when The Sunday Gleaner team visited on Friday afternoon and she had still not obtained her possessions.
According to her, she was being asked to pay an additional amount to collect her suitcase. "That's not right!" When contacted, Sandrea Falconer, director of communications for Air Jamaica, said problems with late arrival of luggage occurred mainly because of bad weather conditions in North America, which affected the movement of freighters.
"Every year at this time, we put on more freighters to allow passengers to carry extra bags for the Christmas," she said.
According to Ms. Falconer, since December 15, over 5,000 excess bags had been brought in, and they have had a freighter coming in every day.
"We have set up a delayed baggage area, where passengers can go to retrieve their baggage," she said.
Many passengers, however, said they had been visiting the airport over a two-day period, spending hours unending and getting nowhere.
One such passenger, Donna-Marie Binns, said she had been waiting for four days, and still had not been able to retrieve her luggage. "I've been here since Wednesday, and they say it's only a possibility that we get our luggage today," she told The Sunday Gleaner yesterday.
Binns, arrived in the island with only her carry-on luggage. "Because I had exceeded the allowed weight, they said they would put my suitcase on standby, which means it wouldn't arrive on the same flight. That I can understand, but it has been four days since," she said.
According to Ms. Falconer, passengers were originally told that they would have to wait 96 hours (four days) for late baggage to arrive. However, she said the airline had since hired 50 additional staff and persons have also volunteered to help with the processing of the backlog.
