CAL

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The concourse at the Piarco International Airport remained filled with stranded, tired and stressed Caribbean Airlines passengers yesterday, after their flights were delayed or cancelled because of a pilot sickout over the weekend.

Many waiting passengers, who were scheduled for a domestic flight to Tobago, said the lack of communication was actually their biggest issue with the airline.

Jean-Paul Petit went to the airport with his relative, who visited for vacation.

“We got here this morning, and we were told that the flights were cancelled or delayed. My brother came down here, the plan was to go to Tobago for a few days, he will lose a day of vacation that he already paid for…It real inconveniencing to sit down in the airport here for three four, five hours, it’s kind of stupid … at the end of the day, tell us what going on so we can either go home or come back or go on the next flight,” Petit said.

Passenger Shellina Maraj shared a similar sentiment, noting she received no information virtually and when she arrived at the airport, got mixed messages from workers over the phone and behind the desk.

“It’s no one flow of communication because this one saying something, the next one saying something, reservations saying something else, so it’s not uniformed,” Maraj complained.

Maraj said she planned for this vacation with her family and took time off work but because she missed the reservations, the things she put in place before hand fell apart.

“I booked places and stuff like cars and the guy is now telling me that it may not be available again,” she explained.

A Tobago resident who came in on an international flight on Saturday and was expected to report for work today, said the delay will affect Tobagonians more because they depend heavily on air and sea bridges.

“A Tobagonian, if you don’t have family that you can stay by in Trinidad, you will have to, of course, have to further expense yourself by finding accommodation on your own, which is sad,” she explained.

One woman, whose CAL flight to Canada on Sunday morning was cancelled, said the airline told her to come early yesterday because there was a flight leaving Guyana. But she said although she arrived just after 2 am, she was unable to get on the flight.

“They said the earlier they come you would be first on the list for standby. I’ve been here at 2.30 this morning because I wanted to be on top, when it finally came they said it full,” she said.

The woman, who lives in south Trinidad, said she and her young daughter waited for hours and the airline had not provided any accommodation. She also was not pleased with the feedback from CAL staff.

“They have more attitude than everybody else, their service really sucks. I told them if I was travelling with Air Canada, I would not get this ridiculous service from them, I said this is my first and last time flying with CAL,” she said.

She was not the only upset international CAL passenger. Two visitors who go by the name Puri Sisters on social media platform TikTok called on the airlines to do better.

“Literally, never fly Caribbean Airlines, it’s been a terrible experience, they won’t even talk to you at the airport, they just like went to the back and everyone is just stranded,” the girls said in their video posted to TikTok.