Home Top Stories Flights cancelled for stranded Guyanese in US, Barbados & TT
…no explanation provided
Two Caribbean Airlines flights which were supposed to repatriate Guyanese stranded overseas have since been cancelled and persons who were supposed to return home are now unsure of their next steps.
There was a Caribbean Airlines flight planned for June 11 for stranded Guyanese in Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados; and another flight from the USA, originating from the John F Kennedy International Airport in New York on June 13.
However, Guyana Times understands both flights were cancelled.
John Ramsingh, one of the Guyanese who had returned home on the first repatriation flight from the United States, explained to media operatives via a press release that the stranded passengers were not given any explanation for the cancellation of the flights.
Efforts by this publication to contact the relevant authorities to find out why the flights were cancelled proved futile.
Ramsingh, on behalf of the stranded Guyanese, is pleading with authorities to honour their commitment to allow them to return home.
“Our fellow Guyanese are desperate to return home with some barely surviving. They have met the criteria to return even under difficult circumstances but are still left in the wilderness. Our decision makers need to allow our brothers and sisters to come back home,” Ramsingh expressed.
The first batch of stranded Guyanese were repatriated on June 6 on a flight from Miami, USA. The Eastern Airlines flight landed at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport (CJIA) in Georgetown at approximately 16:30h with 109 citizens who were all sanitised and screened upon entering the airport.
Once cleared, the passengers were then placed under home quarantine for seven days with representatives of the Public Health Ministry checking on their well-being on a daily basis through visits or telephone calls.
After the incident-free repatriation, senior Government officials, including the caretaker Public Health Minister Volda Lawrence and Guyana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) Director General Egbert Field pledged weekly flights to have stranded citizens reunited with their families in Guyana.