Guyanese suffer as American Airlines battles ‘crew shortage’, Flight delayed AGAIN

For the 4th consecutive time in the last 24 hours, American Airlines has been leaving passengers stranded at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport (GEO) without any proper communication as to why.

However this morning, Minister of Public Works Juan Edghill told BIG Smith News Watch that the delays are not engineered by any fault with the airport but rather, the apparent crew issue that the airline itself has been dealing with quietly.

Last evening this publication reported that the airline has had passengers stranded at the airport since sunday morning and keeps pushing back and cancelling flights leaving the passengers out in the cold.

Passengers have been reporting to this publication that the airline has not been paying to put them up at hotels or compensating them for missed connection flights and are calling on the government to hold the airline accountable for this clear breach.

a flight that was schedule to leave Sunday morning was pushed back three times and when it was to leave on Monday morning, it was again pushed back to later in the day. It is unclear if that ‘later in the day’ deadline would be met.

On Sunday a passenger said she was advised that the flight has been pushed back on all three occasions because of bad weather.

The departure schedule given to the passengers by the airline were as follows

Departure on Tuesday August 03, (Cancelled to 03:00.Hrs on Sunday August 8, 2021)

Sunday August 08, 2021 Departure at 03:00.Hrs (Cancelled to 17:00.Hrs on Sunday August 08, 2021)

Sunday August 08, 2021 Departure at 17:00.Hrs (Cancelled to 23:00hrs on Sunday August 08, 2021)

Sunday Departure at 23:00.Hrs (Cancelled to 07:11.Hrs on Monday August 9,2021)

Monday August 9, 2021 Departure at 07:11.Hrs (Cancelled to Monday August 9 at 11:00.Hrs)

The irate passenger outlined that “persons who do not live here, are running out of money and food and need to get back to work in the US.” The airline has not provided accommodation for the persons who will be stuck at the airport for another night.

“They not putting us up at a hotel or telling us anything,” she said. She added that “some people went and lay on their bags and some went to Lotus area.”

Passengers were also forced to repeat their COVID-19 PCR tests which are required to travel.