Crown Point Airport handles the exodus

Up to about 2 pm yesterday, some 800 holiday makers had been airlifted out of Tobago via Tobago Express and BWIA, and operations at the Crown Point airport were proceeding in normal mode. Tobago Express had operated eight Dash-8 flights and BWIA two flights using jet aircraft up to that time. BWIA was scheduled to operate one other flight out of Tobago yesterday afternoon; these were extra flights put on through an arrangement between Tobago Express and BWIA to accommodate the heavy increase in local visitors to Tobago for the long Easter holiday weekend. But it was expected that the passenger traffic would have intensified later in the afternoon.

“We have been able to move all the passengers with confirmed bookings,” Allan Clovis, a director at Tobago Express, told Newsday at Crown Point airport yesterday. “Now what we have found is that while we did not anticipate really many people not turning up for their (confirmed) flights, we did have some ‘no-shows,’ and this then allowed for us to be able to take up some of the standby passengers.” He said there were about 25 standby passengers and they were able to move all of them by around midday. “We have another ten and we are moving all of them just now,” he said, noting that there had been no pile-up of passengers up to early yesterday afternoon. We have been able to move people all along. Things are pretty normal and we have had no accumulation of passengers.” Clovis explained that some people who had been booked for a morning flight would have been still at the goat races and planning to travel later.

“Now you realise what’s going on there; two things, they blocked up a seat, we were able to put standbys on that, but that doesn’t mean that they will get on later on,” he stressed. “They may cause a problem; they become a standby. We expect some challenges later on.” He said such persons did not have a legitimate right to a flight, having a booked seat for which they did not turn up at the designated time. However, it was explained that additional flights would have been requested in the event of an increased standby passenger list. Clovis said both Tobago Express and BWIA had brought staff personnel from Piarco to augment those at Crown Point airport in anticipation of the increased passenger traffic in the exodus out of Tobago.