‘Nowhere to go stay’: Piarco passengers pay price for US aviation breakdown

An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers

@guardian.co.tt

Pas­sen­gers strand­ed at Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port faced an­oth­er day of un­cer­tain­ty yes­ter­day as air­lines worked to re­cov­er from a ma­jor telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions fail­ure with­in the US Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Ad­min­is­tra­tion’s (FAA) air traf­fic con­trol sys­tem that dis­rupt­ed flights in the US and all across the re­gion.

Long lines formed at the Pi­ar­co air­port, par­tic­u­lar­ly at the Amer­i­can Air­lines counter, as pas­sen­gers wait­ed to re­book flights, con­firm new de­par­ture times and make al­ter­na­tive trav­el arrange­ments. Some spent the night with rel­a­tives or friends, while oth­ers had nowhere to go.

Trans­port and Civ­il Avi­a­tion Min­is­ter Eli Za­k­our con­firmed that the dis­rup­tion af­fect­ed flights trav­el­ling from Trinidad and the East­ern Caribbean to North Amer­i­ca, as well as in­bound flights from North Amer­i­ca.

Za­k­our not­ed that the min­istry mon­i­tored the sit­u­a­tion through­out, while as­sur­ing the trav­el­ling pub­lic that air traf­fic with­in the Pi­ar­co Flight In­for­ma­tion Re­gion con­tin­ued to be man­aged safe­ly and ef­fi­cient­ly.

“At 9.44 pm on Fri­day, the Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Ad­min­is­tra­tion (FAA) Com­mand Cen­tre con­tact­ed the Trinidad and To­ba­go Civ­il Avi­a­tion Au­thor­i­ty (TTCAA) and ad­vised that op­er­a­tions could re­sume,” he said.

How­ev­er, op­er­a­tions did not im­me­di­ate­ly get back on track, as air­lines had to repo­si­tion air­craft and crews af­ter wide­spread de­lays and can­cel­la­tions.

One Amer­i­can Air­lines pas­sen­ger, Solomon Luke, told Guardian Me­dia at Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port yes­ter­day that he was sched­uled to leave Trinidad at 4.42 pm on Fri­day for Mi­a­mi be­fore con­nect­ing to Wash­ing­ton’s Rea­gan Na­tion­al Air­port.

Af­ter an ini­tial de­lay un­til 5 pm, pas­sen­gers board­ed the air­craft, on­ly to be in­struct­ed to dis­em­bark.

His de­par­ture was sub­se­quent­ly resched­uled for 1 pm yes­ter­day.

Luke was able to spend the night with his un­cle, who lives near the air­port.

An­oth­er Amer­i­can Air­lines pas­sen­ger, Jacque­line Stra­chan, 72, from De­troit, was less for­tu­nate. She had nowhere to stay af­ter her flight to Mi­a­mi was re­peat­ed­ly post­poned.

Stra­chan spent the night at the air­port, de­scrib­ing her­self as cold, ex­haust­ed and frus­trat­ed.

She had been sched­uled to leave at 4.42 pm on Fri­day. Af­ter sev­er­al changes, the de­par­ture time was pushed to 7.15 pm, then moved again.

“The hard­est thing for me was that I’m not from Trinidad. And I was three and a half hours away. I had nowhere to go, nowhere to stay,” she ex­plained.

Stra­chan al­so faced the loss of a ho­tel book­ing in Mi­a­mi and un­cer­tain­ty over whether she would make her con­nect­ing flight to De­troit.

Wendy Thomas, who was trav­el­ling to the US Vir­gin Is­lands, de­scribed her dis­ap­point­ment af­ter be­ing forced to leave the air­craft fol­low­ing lengthy de­lays. She faced ad­di­tion­al trav­el arrange­ments, in­clud­ing hav­ing to recheck her lug­gage in Flori­da, and had to seek fi­nan­cial help from her sis­ter to get back home. She spent the night with a friend while await­ing a resched­uled 1 pm de­par­ture.

Mean­while, Ken­neth and Vashti Singh, who were trav­el­ling to Guyana on Caribbean Air­lines, faced a new de­par­ture time of 7.30 pm yes­ter­day.

The cou­ple ex­pressed frus­tra­tion over the re­peat­ed changes and ques­tioned why pas­sen­gers had not re­ceived ear­li­er no­ti­fi­ca­tion be­fore leav­ing home for the air­port.

A re­tired Di­rec­tor Gen­er­al of Civ­il Avi­a­tion at the Trinidad and To­ba­go Civ­il Avi­a­tion Au­thor­i­ty ex­plained that the dis­rup­tion orig­i­nat­ed from com­mu­ni­ca­tion and sur­veil­lance prob­lems af­fect­ing the US air traf­fic con­trol sys­tem.

He ex­plained that 17 of the 22 US air route traf­fic con­trol cen­tres ex­pe­ri­enced com­mu­ni­ca­tion dif­fi­cul­ties, forc­ing au­thor­i­ties to re­strict op­er­a­tions in the in­ter­est of safe­ty.

The re­sult­ing back­log led to can­cel­la­tions, with some flights un­able to op­er­ate be­cause crews ex­ceed­ed their per­mit­ted du­ty hours.

He main­tained that air­lines were work­ing with lim­it­ed in­for­ma­tion and did their best to man­age the sit­u­a­tion.

US House Speak­er Mike John­son said yes­ter­day he was “work­ing on” a plan for Con­gress to pass fund­ing to re­vamp the na­tion’s avi­a­tion sys­tems, but he left un­clear ex­act­ly how that spend­ing would pass.