Tempers flare at Piarco

A severe shortage of Immigration Officers at the Piarco International airport borught the flow of people through the airport to a grinding halt as people awaiting processing remained trapped in lines for several hours.

According to reports, only one Immigration Officer was on staff to process incoming travellers, which resulted in several irate travellers taking to social media to express their dissatisfaction with the lengthy wait. One woman posted that she and her family were waiting in line for two hours to be processed and still had not received any updates on the situation.

Sources revealed that the reason for the staff shortage may have arose because officers are frustrated by non-payment of salaries from last year. Newsday spoke to Zola Joseph, Corporate Communications Manager of the Trinidad and Tobago Airports Authority who confirmed the backlog and said that officials from the Authority were conducting an investigation to determine the cause of the issue.