Trinidadian passengers upset at lack of info after CAL jet issue

(Trinidad Guardian) Trinida­di­an pas­sen­gers who were on board Caribbean Air­lines’ flight BW601 have ex­pressed dis­ap­point­ment at the air­line’s lack of com­mu­ni­ca­tion about why the flight had to re­turn to the Pear­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port (YYZ) on Fri­day morn­ing, one hour af­ter take-off from Cana­da des­tined for the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port.

The pas­sen­gers fi­nal­ly re­turned home around 9.55 pm on Sat­ur­day but ex­pressed frus­tra­tion and anger af­ter the resched­uled flight was again de­layed to 4.15 pm that day af­ter they were told they had to check in at noon for a 3 pm de­par­ture.

“No an­nounce­ment made to us. No ex­pla­na­tion giv­en to us…for so many hours we were kept in the dark and still kept in the dark at the time the flight fi­nal­ly left Toron­to,” one irate pas­sen­ger said.

An­oth­er pas­sen­ger said those who were on board the full flight and des­tined for George­town, Guyana, were al­so an­gry be­cause they missed their con­nect­ing flights be­cause of the de­lay Sat­ur­day.

The T&T Guardian was told that the air­craft sud­den­ly be­gan ex­pe­ri­enc­ing tech­ni­cal dif­fi­cul­ties on its first jour­ney to Pi­ar­co on Fri­day, hence its forced re­turn to Cana­da. The Boe­ing 737-800 air­craft land­ed back at Pear­son at 12.01 am on Sat­ur­day af­ter be­ing forced to turn around in midair when the pi­lots re­port­ed­ly ex­pe­ri­enced an is­sue in the cock­pit.

An­oth­er pas­sen­ger, who is orig­i­nal­ly from Trinidad but re­sides in Toron­to, ex­plained the hor­ror that tran­spired when the pi­lot an­nounced that the plane had to be turned around “be­cause of a prob­lem in the cock­pit.”

“At first every­one thought it was a joke but then we soon re­alised af­ter that it wasn’t. Peo­ple, in­clud­ing my­self, be­gan to pan­ic and some of us start­ed pray­ing loud­ly and hop­ing that we get back to YYZ alive,” the pas­sen­ger said.

“It was a hor­ri­ble land­ing, very rough and fast. I was very ner­vous and scared. It is ap­palling that no in­for­ma­tion was giv­en to us. No an­nounce­ment made. The plane didn’t get to the gate at 3.05 pm (yes­ter­day) and up to that time no an­nounce­ment made as to why…every­one was ag­i­tat­ed…are we, not peo­ple too?”

Af­ter more than one hour seat­ed in the warm air­craft af­ter its re­turn to Pear­son, the pas­sen­gers were in­struct­ed by the crew to dis­em­bark at 1.17 am and wait at the gate. Af­ter wait­ing close to an­oth­er hour at Gate B37, the pas­sen­gers were told the air­line would of­fer lim­ou­sine/taxi ser­vice to those wish­ing to re­turn to their re­spec­tive homes and ho­tel stay at the Hol­i­day Inn Toron­to un­til 12 noon Sat­ur­day.

This arrange­ment too was fraught with mishaps.

One T&T cou­ple ex­plained: “First off, we did not get back our re­spec­tive pieces of lug­gage so we were left with­out fresh clothes and toi­letries. Al­so, some pas­sen­gers were shut­tled to the wrong ho­tel and had to be shut­tled again to the cor­rect one…all this added to the frus­tra­tion and still no ex­pla­na­tion what­so­ev­er giv­en for the in­con­ve­nience.”

The flight ini­tial­ly de­part­ed from Pear­son In­ter­na­tion­al at 10.53 pm on Fri­day from Ter­mi­nal 3 and up­on its emer­gency re­turn land­ed at 12.01 am. In an im­me­di­ate re­sponse then, CAL’s head of cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions Dionne Ligoure said af­ter take-off from Toron­to there was a mi­nor tech­ni­cal is­sue with BW 601.

“How­ev­er, in keep­ing with stan­dard op­er­at­ing pro­ce­dure, the air­craft had to re­turn to the gate for the is­sue to be checked by an air­craft en­gi­neer,” Ligoure said.

“BW 601 re­turned to YYZ and land­ed safe­ly at mid­night. There was noth­ing re­port­ed to be un­usu­al with the land­ing. The air­craft was po­si­tioned at the gate at 12.07 am.”

Ligoure said pas­sen­gers were served meals while the en­gi­neers worked on the mat­ter.

How­ev­er, Ligoure did not re­spond to sub­se­quent en­quir­ing about what was the is­sue en­coun­tered with the air­craft that caused the forced re­turn to Cana­da and why the en­gi­neers need­ed sev­er­al hours to rec­ti­fy it.