Can't get to Cancun due to cancelled CAL flights

THE EDITOR: On Saturday, my colleagues and I were confirmed on a 9.45 pm Caribbean Airlines Ltd (CAL) flight from Tobago to Trinidad and then to pick up a connecting flight to Panama and then to Cancun in Mexico.

We were placed on an earlier flight, which attempted twice to leave the ANR Robinson Airport but couldn’t because of a malfunction with the aircraft. We were told there was no other available aircraft to take us to Piarco International Airport.

After hours of deliberation, we were told to go home and await further updates from the airline. The following day, CAL cancelled all flights to and from Trinidad, making it even more difficult for our situation to be rectified.

To the time of writing on Sunday we have not received any further updates from CAL. No one has apologised or given any solutions with regard to the way forward.

Added to that, we have been told that we need to pay US$75 to rebook our flight to Panama and there is no guarantee we will make it to Cancun. If we don’t make it to Cancun there is only a 50 per cent guaranteed rebate from the hotel.

This is totally unacceptable. We need to be compensated for our financial losses by Caribbean Airlines. It’s high time CAL steps up to the plate and irons out the issues it has been having. This has been going on for too long. It is unacceptable, it’s disappointing, it’s distasteful and we are not going to sit idly by and allow our hard-earn dollars to go down the drain just like that. This problem needs to be fixed with the urgency it deserves.

We have been saving our money for months just to go on this trip, and these people seem not to care. They remain unmoved and unbothered by the turn of events and it seems like they have no back-up plan.

Where is the Minister of Tourism and Minister of Transport in all of this? Where are our tourism officials and CAL representatives? Thousands of travellers have been affected as a result of CAL's inability to solve its problems.

AMINA JAMES

Tobago