LIAT flight cancelled because of an infestation of roaches?

Scores of LIAT passengers were left stranded at the ET Joshua airport on Monday night, after an alleged cockroach infestation caused one of their flights to be grounded.

When SEARCHLIGHT visited the airport mid-morning on Tuesday, there was an extremely long line at the LIAT check-in counter; however, upon further investigation we found out that many of the persons in line had recently arrived.{{more}}

The reason for the hold-up on Tuesday, according to one passenger, was because the first flight had been delayed.

Another passenger, who requested anonymity, told SEARCHLIGHT that she had been at the airport since Monday night and was told that the plane was infested with cockroaches.

The female passenger, who was on her way to New York, said that she believes that if LIAT is given some competition, flights would run more regularly.

“LIAT does not treat we right here; they do everything all over and they look at us last,” she complained.

Another female passenger told SEARCHLIGHT that she had been at the airport since Sunday and was simply told that her flight had been cancelled.

One passenger, who identified himself as Anthony, who was supposed to leave on Monday night, said that it has been a frustrating ordeal for him and his wife Terri.

“I came to bury my mother and I mean it is frustrating. We came here check to in at 8:30 p.m., because our flight was 10:20 p.m.

“…We start making noise, then eventually we got it out of them and they say the truth is this, there were roaches on the plane,” the irate gentleman said.

He also said that he questioned why they couldn’t request another plane from Antigua, since their flight had to be grounded.

“It’s only common sense that if something happen to one of the planes you get another one.”

Anthony’s wife noted that the rescheduled flight would mean that they would miss their connecting flight to Canada.

“We were here last night. Our flight was originally scheduled to leave 10:20 p.m. on September 5th; they rescheduled us to a later flight, but taking that later flight we would miss our connecting flight in Barbados.”

She also told SEARCHLIGHT that while there were many persons at the airport on Tuesday morning, Monday night was much worse and she even feared that frustrated passengers would have begun fighting.

SEARCHLIGHT made several attempts to contact LIAT management for comment; however, those attempts proved futile.(CM)