Leonardo Blair, Enterprise Reporter
THERE WILL be no change in the domestic and cross-island flight plans during Jamaica's hosting of the Cricket World Cup 2007 unless there is some crushing demand for the service, say Air Jamaica and domestic carrier International Airlink.
Right now, it's like this.
If you are lucky like I was last Wednesday morning, you might just be able to catch a cross-island Air Jamaica flight to Montego Bay even though, according to their rules, you weren't supposed to.
"Don't you know you are supposed to be here at least two hours before departure?" asked the ticketing agent after I scrambled past the security guard at the Norman Manley International Airport in Kingston. She told me the flight was closed. It's 8:45 a.m., the flight leaves at 9:15.
"Yes," I said. "I was stuck in traffic, please please, it is important I get on this flight."
"Where are you going?"
"MoBay. Not too far, I'm sure you can do something? The flight hasn't left yet?" She calls over one of the supervisors. The supervisor pauses, then beckons to his colleague and tells her to check me in. It's quick and routine. The immigration officer is equally swift.
"Can I see your ID? Where's your final destination?"
PUZZLED SECURITY
I tell him, and he waves me along. I make a bee line to the gate thinking everyone else must have boarded the flight already. The security at the gate is puzzled. She says she never heard the announcer say it was time to board. As I begin to open my mouth to ask if she was sure, the announcement came and she begins to doubt her memory.
"I didn't hear when they made the first announcement," she said when the other passengers started filing a line behind me. "They didn't make one," I said to relieve her. "I'm just early."
"Oh," she says, and gives me the go-ahead. I make my way to the tarmac. A fragile old woman is clumping her way up the aluminium steps of the aeroplane with her walker. I slumped in my seat, 11A. A window. I'm the second person to be seated on this flight even though I was so late. The flight was a breeze.
We were 10 minutes early, touching down at the Sangster International Airport in Montego Bay. It's 9:41 a.m. I joined a long line for about a minute when a customs officer called all the passengers coming from Kingston whose final destination was Montego Bay. A few persons including me stepped forward. We were ushered along as soon as we were able to show appropriate ID. I was outside the airport before 10 o'clock.
"They are not finished working on anything (for Cricket World Cup)," says Marjorie Robinson, PR manager for Air Jamaica. "We are still in the planning stages; we might have to put in an extra plane to shuttle the passengers if there is the demand, but they (Air Jamaica) have not seen the loads yet," she says.
I'm heading back to Kingston. The time is 3:55 p.m. at the International Airlink terminal. The flight leaves in 20 minutes. It is pouring rain and there is choking traffic in the streets of Montego Bay.
FLEXIBLE PLAN
"Do you think you'll be able to manage the World Cup traffic when it comes," I ask the ticketing agent. "Well, if the planes come," he says, tending to my ticket at the same time. "How many planes are you expecting?" I ask. "Three," he says.
Most of the people waiting on this small flight say it's better and more flexible than the cross-island package offered by Air Jamaica.
"I have no problems with these domestic flights," says mechanical engineer, Laurel Robinson. "I think that by the time World Cup comes around though, they will need more planes. They would have to incorporate more flights," she said.
Jimmy Ho-On, a pilot with International Airlink, said the service makes five round trips daily with the 19-seater aircraft. "We have other aircraft that do the tourist trips and other charter services, but I understand that they will be getting additions to the fleet."
These additions, he explained, however, had nothing to do specifically with Jamaica's hosting of the Cricket World Cup 2007. The focus, explains Marjorie Gordon, appears to be in land travel, and adequate resources are in place for that.
As a host country of the International Cricket Council's (ICC) Cricket World Cup 2007, Jamaica is required to develop a comprehensive event hosting plan. Elements of the event hosting plan include aspects such as security, accommodation and transportation.
Some 20,000 fans are expected to share the island with Jamaica's regular crop of tourists during the Cricket World Cup which will be held across nine host venues in the region in March and April next year.
