GA2000 scheduled for departure today
THE GA2000 aircraft, which had been down since Tuesday because of technical difficulties, is now `ship-shape' and scheduled to depart for Toronto, Canada today at 10:00 hours. This was confirmed by telephone yesterday at 16:40 hours by the public relations firm, Public Communications Consultants Limited (PCCL). Check-in time, PCCL said, is 07:00 hours. Up to 14:45 hours yesterday, passengers booked on the GA 442 flight to Toronto were still in limbo, not knowing whether the flight was still on or not. Most had gone as far as the airport to check in, only to be told that the flight, which was scheduled to depart at 16:30 hours, had been cancelled and that they should check with the company's Main Street head office. Head office officials were at one point overheard asking a group of irate passengers to bear with them. The officials tried to explain why the flight was delayed. The GA2000 staffers said that the spares needed to rectify the problem would not be arriving until later that afternoon on a BWIA flight, but that every effort was being made to charter another plane. They said that by 16:00 hours GA2000 would be able to say what the position was. Other passengers, however, were offered no explanation and were left to their own devices as officials flitted to and fro, totally ignoring them. Some officials were also seen to be attending a select group of people, many of whom had come and met persons there. One man, who had come all the way from New Amsterdam, said he and his family of five had been waiting since morning to be attended. What upset him most, he said, was that in spite of the numbering system in place, people who had come long after them had already been attended and had left. He was also upset at the fact that the company did not see it fit to apprise him of the problem even though they had taken his telephone number when he went to confirm his flight last weekend. This was contradictory to a press statement issued earlier in the day through PCCL, which said that passengers booked on the flight were being kept fully informed. PCCL later confirmed that the expected spares did arrive on a BWIA flight at 15:30 hours as it had indicated in the statement. The repairs were effected by engineers from the Australian firm, Nordstress, who had arrived here since Wednesday with what they thought would be enough items to correct the problem. It turned out, however, that the problem was even more complex than they had anticipated, which was why they had sent for additional spares. This unexpected setback, PCCL said in its statement, caused the GA 722 flight to New York, whose departure had already been rescheduled from Tuesday morning to Wednesday evening at 19:00 hours, to be cancelled at 20:20 hours. As was the case when the flight was cancelled on Tuesday, arrangements were again made for passengers to be either accommodated or returned home. According to the statement, arrangements were made for a number of passengers booked on GA 721, which was scheduled to depart for New York 09:30 hours on Wednesday, to fly BWIA, while others were put on standby. (LINDA RUTHERFORD)
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