Indian nationals sent off

– Insel Air mulls legal action

August 8, 2015 | By KNews | Filed Under News, Source

The government of Guyana may soon find itself faced with a lawsuit by airline company, Insel Air. The company is contemplating legal action after its outgoing flight, 81-791, to Aruba and other connecting destinations, was cancelled and the aircraft grounded on Thursday due to reasons it maintains were misdirected.

Immigration Officers had ordered Insel Air officials to take eight Indian Nationals out of the jurisdiction after they were refused entry to Guyana on July 19. They had arrived on an Insel Air flight from CuraÇao and the pilot of an Aruba-bound Insel aircraft refused.

As he spoke of the likely lawsuit, Managing Director of the Roraima Airways, Captain Gerald ‘Gerry’ Gouveia said that as a result of Thursday’s episode, the airline was faced with a series of disrupted flights and an overwhelming number of peeved customers who booked across multiple-destinations.

Gouveia related that the eight Indian Nationals at the centre of the controversy sparked, have since departed Guyana. Gouveia’s company serves as the Ground Handling Service and General Sales Agents for Insel Air and he said the passengers who were similarly stranded because of Immigration’s actions have also been transported to their various locations.

Gouveia went to great lengths to explain to this publication that Insel Air Aruba and Insel Air CuraÇao are different. He said while it was the Insel Air CuraÇao carrier that brought the men on July 19, it was the Aruba carrier that was being bombarded by Immigration to facilitate their deportation.

The Managing Director said the men would have traveled through several destinations before landing in Guyana. It was directly after spending a few hours in CuraÇao that the men ventured to Guyana where their trip took a different turn.

Though they had no Visa, Gouveia explained that many Indian nationals travel to this part of the world without visas and would be issued with Visas-on-Arrival usually after a successful interview with an Immigration Officers. It is the right of the Immigration Officer to refuse landing, Gouveia said.

The authorities, he said, should have ensured that the men were deported on an Insel Air CuraÇao carrier.

“They are two different companies. If the men were taken to Aruba, they would have been sent back to Guyana since they never landed there. Insel Air Aruba had nothing to do with it,” Captain Gouveia explained.

He said, instead, a prolonged argument ensued and the pilot’s duty time expired, hence the flight on Thursday did not depart until yesterday morning.

“Immigration had no reason to interfere with that flight. A lot of passengers were upset, but this is not an Insel Air Aruba or Insel Air CuraÇao’s problem at all,” Gouveia emphasized.

Insel Air is an airline which hosts a series of integrated flights and the Managing Director explained that Thursday’s disruption had far-reaching effects.

“It’s an airline of integrated flights so when they disrupted that flight, there were persons stranded in various locations across the Caribbean, South America and other international locations. The disruption caused a backlog throughout the network,” Gouveia clarified.

The flight to Aruba was scheduled to leave Guyana at 06:45hrs, with connecting flights to CuraÇao, Miami and other destinations. Many of the passengers had been at the airport for hours.

Immigration made a huge blunder, according to Gouveia.

“The airline is thinking of suing Guyana,” said the Roraima Airways Managing Director, who emphasized that Thursday’s disruption caused “massive problems.”

Gouveia said that the company has already written to the Guyana Police Force (GPF) concerning the issue.

Minister of Citizenship, Winston Felix, had said that the men were refused entry because they had no visas and the fact that they were travelling on one-way tickets.

Gouveia is saying however that the men had two-way tickets since they had booked the outgoing leg of their journey with Panama-based Copa Airlines.

The men, it was further claimed, could not show evidence of how they would have been able to sustain themselves during their stay in the country. The men were kept in police custody and Felix had maintained that it was the airline that was responsible for the men’s return to their originating destination.

Local authorities had taken the decision to have the men placed on an Insel Air flight departing for Aruba since they had no legal standing in Guyana. As the men were about to board the aircraft, the crew refused to let them on the plane leading to a stand-off, with local immigration maintaining their position that the airline take the men back to where they had brought them from.

Eventually a decision was made for the flight to be cancelled as the airline also refused to budge. As a result, several other passengers who were scheduled to depart on the aircraft were left stranded. Some passengers that were peeved by the situation had hinted that they might be suing the airline.