BWIA/LIAT Screw-up Leaves Players Stranded

Three senior members of the Guyana Under-19 team were bumped from their flight to Jamaica because of booking screw-ups by the BWIA/LIAT airlines, according to a report in the Stabroek News.

Pacer Jeremiah Harris and leg spinner Lookeshwar Mahabeer, both senior players in the team with previous national youth team experience, along with debutant pacer Kwese Maltay missed the 11:30 a.m LIAT flight out of Guyana on Monday morning because there were no seats available on the aircraft.

Debutant leg spinner Brian Stephney was fortunate not to be also left behind as a female passenger was taken off the flight to accommodate him, the paper said.

President of the Guyana Cricket Board (GCB) Chetty Singh said the flight mix-up was another sign the region needed to do a lot of work to improve air travel around the Caribbean, especially since the 2007 World Cup is slated for West Indies.

"The team was booked to fly out on a BWIA 5:30 a.m flight on Monday but the airline called the evening before the scheduled departure time to say the players, along with Manager Carl Moore and Wayne Jackson, had been transferred to the LIAT flight which departed at 11:30 a.m on Monday" Singh told the newspaper.

However, when the players arrived at the airport, LIAT did not have seats to accommodate them. Alternative arrangements were being made to transport the players to Jamaica in time for the tournament, which begins on Thursday, August 1.