Melis­sa Doughty

Hun­dreds of Caribbean Air­lines (CAL) pas­sen­gers strand­ed at JFK in­ter­na­tion­al air­port are now home en­joy­ing Christ­mas to­day.

Caribbean Air­lines cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions man­ag­er Clint Williams con­firmed in a tele­phone in­ter­view with the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day, that all the strand­ed pas­sen­gers on its ser­vice out of JFK air­port, New York have been re­turned to T&T.

Williams al­so con­firmed that CAL's ser­vice in and out of JFK is now back on track.

Be­tween 500 and 600 CAL pas­sen­gers were de­layed af­ter an air­craft leased to the air­line by Om­ni Air In­ter­na­tion­al ex­pe­ri­enced me­chan­i­cal prob­lems, which caused a lengthy de­lay in the air­line's flight ser­vice from New York to T&T.

Williams said two flights sched­uled to fly on De­cem­ber 19 and 20 were de­layed.

The strand­ed pas­sen­gers ar­rived be­tween De­cem­ber 22 and 23 af­ter the air­line was able to se­cure three 767 air­craft from the Om­ni Air In­ter­na­tion­al as "part of its con­trac­tu­al re­quire­ments to pro­vide con­tin­gency air­craft in such an emer­gency."

Strand­ed pas­sen­gers, he said, were of­fered ac­com­mo­da­tion and meal vouch­ers in the mean­time.

When asked about the cost in­curred by the air­line dur­ing the de­lay Williams said he could not an­swer that at the mo­ment but that the less­er com­pa­ny (Om­ni Air In­ter­na­tion­al) bore some re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.