Lawrence
Dionne Rose, Staff Reporter
FRUSTRATED PASSENGERS who were scheduled to travel on Air Jamaica flights bound for Montego Bay and Kingston had to be calmed by airport police yesterday after becoming boisterous at the JFK Airport in New York.
The Gleaner was informed that the 100-plus passengers became furious because they were forced to wait indefinitely for their flights to leave that airport.
SCALED-DOWN OPERATIONS
The delay was caused from scaled-down operations being implemented on routes to the United States because of, the airline claims, major maintenance and quality assurance checks on a number of its aircraft.
Two flights were said to have been affected yesterday.
Stephanie Kellier, a passenger who was scheduled to leave JFK on the 8:00 a.m. flight yesterday, said that she was very frustrated after waiting more than nine hours for her flight to leave for Jamaica.
"I was supposed to leave on the 8:00 a.m. flight but they said it would leave at 10:00 a.m. Now, they are saying it would leave at 6:30 p.m. We are more than frustrated," she told The Gleaner via telephone from New York yesterday afternoon. "They didn't even call us to tell us about the changes," she complained.
THEY ARE NOT TALKING
Meanwhile, another passenger scheduled to leave on the 10:15 a.m. flight said he was furious about the delay because "they are not talking". He added that there was no one to explain the cause of the delay.
However, Kellier pointed out that she would be demanding back her money and changing her travel plans.
"They have caused us to waste a lot of time out here," she said.
In a release yesterday from Air Jamaica, which was taken over by the government last December, Dr. Vincent Lawrence, executive chairman, said, "(The) airline has taken the decision to allocate additional resources to maintenance and its quality assurance checks."
Dr. Lawrence said: "The national airline continues to guard very jealously, its unblemished safety record and in this regard these checks are very important."
Reports reaching The Gleaner are that the U.S.-based Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) in recent times has increased the frequency of its inspections of the national carrier. Officials at the local Civil Aviation Authority were not available for comment yesterday and Transport Minister Robert Pickersgill declined to comment.
"I will deal with that at an appropriate time. I will answer those questions, but not at this time," he said.
According to the statement from Air Jamaica, the routes affected by the scale-down were the Miami route, which is down from two flights per day to one; Fort Lauderdale, down from three flights per day to two; and New York, one or two flights per day.
Some passengers would expe-rience delays, the travel dates for others would be rescheduled while some would be accommodated on other flights during the period, the airline pointed out.
"The airline apologises for the inconvenience to our valued passengers and thanks them for their patience, understanding and continued support as we undertake this important maintenance schedule," said the Air Jamaica chairman. "The airline continues to ensure reliability of service and better on-time performance even as we seek to bring financial stability to the airline."
