PASSENGERS bound for the United States of America and Canada remained stranded here yesterday, as the local offices of BWIA and North American Airlines (NAA) awaited permission from the United States Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) to resume flights.

On Tuesday, the FAA and Transport Canada closed all airports in the US and Canada respectively, in the wake of devastating attacks on the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York, and on the Pentagon in Washington DC, the nerve-centre of the nation’s military.

BWIA had flights en-route to New York, Miami and Toronto, and NAA was destined for New York, when they were forced to abort the flights.

The NAA flight, which was just off Puerto Rico when the decision was taken to abort, had 133 passengers and an undisclosed number of crew.

Commercial Manager of the Guyana office of NAA, Mr Junior Horatio, said that although some passengers have been severely inconvenienced, they understand the situation and are being very cooperative.

According to schedule, NAA’s next flight is tomorrow and Horatio anticipates no problem in terms of transporting passengers to JFK on that date, as according to him, “this is the low season and aircraft are not usually fully booked”.

The next scheduled flight for BWIA was to have been 5:30 hrs today, but when reached yesterday afternoon, Area Manager Ms Dawn Murray, ruled out any possibility of BWIA putting on a flight then.

“If the FAA gives us permission, it would be virtually impossible for us

to make contact with all our passengers, so I can safely say that the flight is cancelled,” she said.

Meanwhile, a release issued by BWIA stated that FAA and Transport Canada had advised on the continuing closure of all United States and Canadian airports.

It noted that the airline’s services to New York - BW 424 from Trinidad and Guyana; BW 426 from Trinidad and Barbados along with BW 444 from Trinidad to Miami, have all been cancelled, and advised that resumption depended on the advice of FAA and Transport Canada.

The statement gave the assurance that information in relation to BWIA’s services to the United States and Canada will be given as soon as it becomes available.

BWIA, however, continued to operate its other services according to schedule, the release said, pointing out that although London Heathrow Airport is on full alert, it remains open.