World Cup Officials in BWIA Run-around

Tue, Jun 13, '06

Dear CWC family:

The story you are about to hear is true. As you read through it, you may begin to doubt its authenticity, but trust me, the other five members of our Mission Impossible team can vouch for everything you are about to hear.

It is a story of grit and determination, of guile and deception, of resilience and resourcefulness. It is also a story of six fearless explorers who bravely faced the unrelenting wrath that is an out of control BWee, and, against all odds, arrived safely home, battle-weary, bleary-eyed…but triumphant in victory.

Our journey began innocently enough on the morning of June 10th, (albeit at the ungodly hour of 4:45 a.m.) as we set out to return to home base in Kingston from Venue Summit IX in simply beautiful St. Lucia. Deron Dixon, Kerrie-Ann Tucker, Michelle Henry and Michael Hall from CWC were joined by Pauline Nelson and Lisa-Ann O'Gilvie from the Jamaica LOC and we headed off from the Bay Gardens Hotel to catch Caribbean Star # 8B753, leaving at 6:00 a.m. for a quick 40 minute hop over to Grantley Adams International in Barbados. The aircraft was already on the ground when we got to the airport so the day was looking promising.

We landed in BGI in plenty of time to make the connection to BW414 – scheduled to depart Barbados for St. Maarten and Kingston at 8:25 a.m., and were in good spirits when we joined the check-in line. To say that the day went downhill from there would be an understatement.

A BWee ground staff member told us that BW414 was late out of Trinidad, and would only be stopping in St. Maarten and not Barbados. We were being put on a LIAT flight to Port-of-Spain to get on BW414 there. It seemed strange to me that BW414 could stop in St. Maarten and not in Barbados.

We got to Trinidad at about 9 a.m. cleared immigration and customs, walked to the BWee counter and checked in on BW414, which we were told was now leaving Piarco at 11:30 a.m. So far not too good……but importantly not too bad either. Instead of getting to Kingston at 11:20 a.m. we were now arriving at about 3:20 p.m….at least it would still be on the same day we expected. Hah! Yu ever hear 'bout Murphy's Law?

All six of us now made our way to the departure gate to await boarding. The T&T v Sweden game was about to begin (mid-day) and they had not started to board the flight. Rumours started to fly around……flight attendants were on strike, the pilot and first officer had called in sick in order to watch the game….whatever it was, we were not being boarded. At about 12:15, the announcement came. One of the flight attendants working the flight had "incredibly and unexpectedly" fallen and broken her ankle as she was entering the plane. BWee medical personnel had declared her incapable of working…..the service was being cancelled. To lend some authenticity to the announcement, the stewardess was seen shortly thereafter being wheeled through the departure lounge in a wheelchair!!!

We had to go back to customs, reclaim our luggage and report to the BWee counter for further instructions.

BWee gave us lucky patrons the following options:

1.) Holders of valid US visas would travel to Miami the following morning on AA (arriving Miami mid-day) and then Miami / Kingston, also AA, arriving Kingston 5:20 p.m.

2.) Non-holders of US visas would travel to Kingston on BW414 on Monday...maybe.

3.) In both cases we would be accommodated at the Hilton in Port-of-Spain.

Lisa did not have a US visa, and we decided that we would work as a team, and travel all six of us together, come what may.

Yours truly assumed a leadership role (although I suspect that as the eldest in the group, it fell to me by default). I called an influential friend at Air Jamaica and managed to get a group reservation for all 6 of us on their flight out of Barbados to Kingston on June 11th, - despite the flight already being overbooked. All we had to do now was get all 6 of us on the next available flight to Barbados. While I joined the line at the BWee counter to sort out the tickets for the Air Jamaica flight, Michelle went to check on flights to Barbados. Kerrie-Ann called our colleague Adrian Griffith (in Barbados for a few days before returning to work) and he secured reservations for us at the Barbados Hilton (hey, why not….BWee was paying).

Michelle found us seats on Caribbean Star, leaving Piarco at 6 p.m. and suddenly, things weren't looking that bad. Unfortunately, by the time I got to the counter, showed the agent the group reservation for the Air Jamaica flight, got those tickets issued, got him to call his supervisor and get her to agree to pay for the rooms in Barbados, the seats on Caribbean Star were gone!!

But wait...there were seats on LIAT # 334 leaving at 8 p.m. OK, lets see, leave Trinidad at 8, get to Barbados at 9 – at the Hilton by 10 – shower, room service, a good night's sleep…things were looking up again...until that guy Murphy showed up again.

LIAT # 334 left Piarco 30 minutes late, and had stops in Grenada and St. Vincent, before finally arriving in Barbados at 11 p.m. We had arrived at Grantley Adams almost 17 hours earlier that same day eager and expectant of catching our connection home to Kingston. And here we were again, only this time we were a despondent, bedraggled bunch….battered from the day's ordeal and just looking for somewhere to rest our heads. We did get to Hilton fairly quickly and some of Bim's finest (an elderly taxi driver named Jimmy who told the ladies in the group that although his white hair looked like "snow on the roof", there was still a lot of "fire in the stove" – and the great staff at the hotel) made us feel better about the day's events.

Our strategy for the next day was to get to the airport early and check in before every body else, because everybody knows that a boarding pass for an overbooked flight is like good gold. We did this and had a scare when the agent checking us in told us that we would have to be on stand-by because we were re-routed passengers from BWee. Another phone call to my Air Jamaica friend soon solved that and we all got our seat assignments.

As I type this story from my bedroom at HOME, and share this experience with all of the CWC family, I want say "big-up" to my team members. You guys were great and I really don't think we could have "made it" without each other.

To Pauline who was quietly strong and always level-headed. To Kerrie-Ann who was right about not listening to BWee's suggestion about taking an Air Suriname jet that they were planning to charter. To Lisa-Ann for making sure I didn't run out of cigarettes. To Michelle for buying that huge bucket of KFC which kept us all going throughout the day. And to Deron - who sort of left us to work things out while he watched the FIFA world cup games on the TV in the airport - for keeping us up to date on the scores.

It was truly a once in a lifetime (one can only hope!!) experience.

Michael Hall
Cricket Operations Director

* This e-mail was first published by the Guyana Providence Stadium blog. CaribbeanCricket.com has independently verified its legitimacy.