A whirlwind visit to Fort Lauderdale

IT was meant to be an inaugural flight to Fort Lauderdale, but it went so fast that I was back in Trinidad within hours although my passport was stamped for six months. The scene was Piarco International Airport on Saturday. The time was 8 am. Travel Span invited travel agents and media personnel for the inaugural flight on Trans Meridian T95091 — a new service between Port-of-Spain and Fort Lauderdale, the tourist area in Florida. The three and a half hour long flight began with a hot towel service and was followed by a continental breakfast which included light toast and fruit. To break the monotony of the long flight guests were treated to giveaways of replicas of the Trans Meridian airplane and a movie apart from being served glasses of champagne.

After arriving at the Fort Lauderdale Airport at about 12.30 pm, guests of the Travel Span flight were taken to a reception held at the Airport terminal to commemorate the event. With the sounds of steel pan filling the air, greetings came from Broward County Commissioner Josephus Eggelton, who welcomed the airline to what he considered the fastest growing international airport in the United States. With no opportunity for sight seeing, guests of the flight were summoned back to the departure gates for the return trip to Trinidad at 2 pm.

With a blink of the eye, the plane was heading back to Trinidad. The trip was over, it was the fast trip to the United States I had ever encountered. It was so fast, that media personnel landed at Piarco Airport at 5.30 pm, in time to take in and cover the Millie Jackson concert at the Queen’s Park Savannah at 8.30 pm. No one would believe that I had gone to Fort Lauderdale for the day and returned home in time for an international concert! So efficient was the service, just think of going to Fort Lauderdale to shoot photos and return home... same day.