By Francis Quamina Farrier 

MINISTER of Labour, Hon. Joseph Hamilton recently arrived back in Guyana after an unexpected hiccup in his recent international travel itinerary. The Guyanese politician was travelling with the Panama-based COPA Airlines. Hamilton related the bad experience he suffered when he travelled with the carrier on a flight back to Guyana. I had a similar experience with COPA on May 14, 2019, while on my way from the United States to my home country, Guyana.

The COPA flight from America was via Panama, a country in Central America with a high crime rate. However, what was supposed to have been a rather short layover at the Tocumen International Airport in that country turned out to be a sort of ‘stay-over’. After the flight landed in Panama, the announcement made by the COPA Public Relations Team on the Public Address System was that the plane would be on the ground for a fairly short time, which proved to be much longer than passengers expected. What was supposed to be no longer than maybe two to three hours dragged on and on to more than six hours.

As was experienced by Joseph Hamilton, there were no professional updates by the airline regarding when the Guyana-bound passengers would be instructed to make their way to the boarding gate and get into their seats on the plane. In fact, there seemed to have been no gate for us to go through and board our onward flight to our beautiful Guyana. In both cases I am referring to, COPA treated us like “Children of a Lesser God’, saying absolutely nothing to us as we wondered what was going on! We were simply ignored by COPA Airlines, which had already pocketed the money which we had paid for our tickets. We felt like squatters, while hundreds of other passengers from various airlines were actively toing and froing. COPA had received our hard-earned money up-front; they were not flying us free! At the time, it was their business and moral obligation to treat us with respect as paying customers. They ought to have kept us posted, possibly on an hourly basis, on the current situation.

Then, there was advice from some of the airport workers, suggesting to us not to leave the airport terminal building and go sightseeing, because there would be a high possibility that we could have been mugged (robbed). So, there we were in a strange, Spanish-speaking country and disoriented to some degree, to say the least.

Being in an international airport where all the signs are in Spanish, and not having anyone versed in the language to help out with the Spanish-to-English translations could be difficult. While in such a predicament, the advisable thing to do is to try as best as possible and remain calm, which is easier said than done. If you are in a touring group and have a local tour guide, that can bring a measure of calmness and a feeling of security as you continue to enjoy your adventure. However, if you are on your own, it can be a rather unsettling situation. Minister Hamilton, who is now safely back in his native Guyana, has experience being in some rather tough environments, such as our Parliament, and did his fair share of dishing out, in words and deeds, the things which he felt were necessary for the development of Guyana. I have noted some of the varying comments that were dispatched to social media, both in support and concern for him during this experience, as well as some of those who expressed joy at his temporary predicament. Be that as it may, our fellow Guyanese is now back in his native Guyana, and continuing with his daily activities as a son of the soil.