Jamaica Observer– SOME Fly Jamaica Airways customers who had planned to spend Christmas with their family overseas say they were robbed of the opportunity, as fares paid to the airline have not been returned.
Thirty-five days after Fly Jamaica’s Boeing 757-200 aircraft overshot the runway at Guyana’s main international airport, injuring several people, frustrated customers turned up at their Holborn Road office in Kingston seeking answers.
“I booked with Fly Jamaica from July, supposed to travel next week. Me never know say Fly Jamaica have problem. Me know the plane crash but me never know say a one plane them have. Nobody called to say that this is the situation, we putting you on another airline, or come back for your money,” Althea Bryan told the Jamaica Observer yesterday.
Bryan, who was seen clutching her documents as she exited the office, said she had planned to spend Christmas with her family in New York.
The woman who was travelling for the fifth time said she was introduced to the embattled airline through a travel agency in July. Bryan said when she went to the travel agency to confirm her flight she was told that the airline had a problem.
“When I went inside they said no manager or supervisor was there to speak with us,” she complained.
Another customer, who was supposed to leave the island today with her two sons, said Fly Jamaica did not remedy the dilemma or compensate her.
“I bought three tickets for [a total of] $222,000 at the agency for three of us to travel on the 15th of December. I had to cancel mine. My sons have to go out tomorrow morning on a 6 o’clock flight. I got a call yesterday to come in to the agency, she sent me down here. They are telling me that they don’t have a plane and they can’t get us on another flight,” Sherrly Green told the Observer.
Green, who was livid, said, “Me know my rights I’m going to take it up in hand.”
Unlike Green and Bryan, Rachael Wilson’s husband, who is supposed to arrive in the island from New York days before Christmas, said her husband had just secured a ticket so that he would not disappoint his family and relatives next week.
Wilson said she was given an application form to fill out after she went inside the office seeking redress.
“Nobody was willing to tell us what was going on, no one could answer our questions. They just telling me now that we are to sign a form and that eight weeks’ time we will hear from them,” Wilson said, adding that she was also told to purchase another ticket from different airline.
Meanwhile, reporters were told that the managers and supervisors were at lunch and that no one was there to address the media.
