CAL passengers get travel voucher for Monday’s delays

Trinidad-based Caribbean Airlines Limited (CAL) has compensated passengers on a direct flight from New York to Guyana, who endured more than 10 hours delay on Monday.
Passengers had complained about the treatment from the airline, including the fact that they were stuck abroad the aircraft for five hours at the John F Kennedy Airport in New York and then another two hours at the Piarco Airport in Trinidad.
Flight BW527 was scheduled to depart New York at 12:25h on Monday, but owing to the inclement weather, left until 04:26h. Added to this, instead of heading straight to Guyana, the plane diverted to Trinidad to change flight crew. This resulted in the flight landing in Guyana until 16:12h, some 12 hours after the plane left the US.
However, CAL has issued an apology to the hundreds of passengers on board that flight and has issued them with a travel voucher as compensation for the delays.
In an email sent to one of the affected passengers on Monday, the Customer Relations Department of CAL’s Head Office said, “Please accept our sincere apologies for the inconvenience experienced.”
According to the airline, the safety of its customers and crew is the main priority of CAL. The airline said it made every effort to ensure this, along with courteous and professional service.
“We do regret that on this occasion, unforeseen circumstances caused you to arrive at your destination later than expected. To demonstrate our commitment to service excellence and as a gesture of goodwill for the inconvenience, Caribbean Airlines will provide you with a Transportation Voucher for the value of the New York to Georgetown sector of your ticket excluding taxes. Caribbean Airlines Transportation Vouchers are used for future travel and are valid for one year from the date of issue,” the correspondence from the airline to a first-class passenger stated.
Guyana Times International understands that Private Sector Commission Chairman Desmond Sears was a passenger on that flight and he confirmed, when contacted, that he too received a compensatory transportation voucher.
Sears told this newspaper that he was pleased with the effort of the airline to “give passengers some sort of compensation”. But looking back, the PSC Chairman felt that more could have been done by the airline to comfort and appease passengers during the incident.
“There wasn’t anything anyone could’ve done in New York, because we were snowed in and had to wait that out, but when we were diverted to Trinidad, the pilot did his best to provide whatever information he could have… I feel maybe an agent for the airline could’ve come (while we were waiting in the plane for two hours) and explain properly what was going on, because some passengers were angry and stuff … they thought we were gonna get a meal when we get to Trinidad, because we had boarded, since midnight but that didn’t happen,” he asserted.
Nevertheless, Sears did acknowledge that the airline did make an effort to facilitate easy boarding at the Piarco Airport, whereby they were allowed to go straight to the departure lounge instead of going through the immigration tedious processes.