As of De­cem­ber 23, 2020, 17,211 peo­ple made ex­emp­tion re­quests to en­ter T&T. Of that fig­ure, there were 9,557 ex­emp­tions grant­ed, leav­ing more than 7,654 peo­ple, res­i­dents and non-res­i­dents, still out­side, as T&T's bor­ders re­main closed.

Ac­cord­ing to many of these strand­ed na­tion­als, they have been aban­doned by the Gov­ern­ment, and the ex­emp­tion process in place is cum­ber­some, in­ef­fi­cient, and plagued by pref­er­en­tial treat­ment.

"The Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty puts it very nice­ly on pa­per, but the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the process is a to­tal fail­ure...They are mis­lead­ing the pop­u­la­tion," said Sangee­ta Jagdeo, a na­tion­al who re­turned to the coun­try two weeks ago af­ter be­ing strand­ed in In­dia.

"The Prime Min­is­ter’s daugh­ter ap­plied in No­vem­ber, and she is al­ready home. What about all those peo­ple strand­ed since March or April?" Jagdeo asked.

On so­cial me­dia and in What­sApp groups com­pris­ing hun­dreds of strand­ed na­tion­als, sto­ries of des­per­ate cas­es are dis­cussed–sto­ries of peo­ple run­ning out of sav­ings and on the verge of be­ing put out of homes.

"There are peo­ple stay­ing at train sta­tions and sleep­ing there. Peo­ple on the side­walk in New York," a na­tion­al, who li­ais­es with oth­er strand­ed na­tion­als, claimed.

Like­wise, there are sto­ries of na­tion­als bat­tling se­vere de­pres­sion caused by lone­li­ness and pro­longed sep­a­ra­tion from loved ones.

"There are women here who call their chil­dren every night, and their chil­dren break down in tears, ask­ing, mom­my when you com­ing home?" a Cana­di­an farm work­er said, speak­ing about his col­leagues.

"I don’t have the de­sire to go out be­cause I’m all alone. There’s no­body for me to say, let’s go for a walk, or let’s go some­where," a strand­ed na­tion­al in Eu­rope added.

Sangeeta Jagdeo

Some peo­ple have sued Min­is­ter Stu­art Young over the process while oth­ers are threat­en­ing le­gal ac­tion.

Af­ter sev­er­al cit­i­zens com­plained of run­ning out of mon­ey to sur­vive abroad, in Au­gust Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley au­tho­rised the Min­istry of Fi­nance to is­sue USD$200,000 to the rel­e­vant em­bassies to as­sist na­tion­als who re­mained abroad.

For many of these na­tion­als, out­side of telling close fam­i­ly mem­bers and friends, these groups are the on­ly space they feel safe to share as­pects of their heart-wrench­ing ex­pe­ri­ences.

That’s be­cause they fear vic­tim­i­sa­tion, they said.

"You don’t want to come out and speak be­cause you don’t know if they see your name on the list they may de­cide to scratch it off," said a na­tion­al strand­ed in Ger­many.

A few of the na­tion­als, how­ev­er, agreed to share their sto­ries with Guardian Me­dia.

Sangee­ta Jagdeo re­turned to Trinidad from In­dia two weeks ago

"If it wasn’t for Gary, I would have been in se­ri­ous trou­ble."

In ear­ly March, Sangee­ta Jagdeo trav­elled to In­dia for a three-week pro­gramme that she was spe­cial­ly in­vit­ed to.

With­in three days of her ar­rival, In­dia went in­to lock­down, and on March 22, be­fore her de­par­ture date, Trinidad closed its bor­ders.

Luck­i­ly for her, though, she had a place to stay–in a guest house pro­vid­ed by the In­di­an gov­ern­ment, as part of the pro­gramme. De­spite bear­ing the cost of rent and food her­self, she said be­ing in In­dia was not a prob­lem, as the Gov­ern­ment took good care of strand­ed na­tion­als there.

Her at­tempts to get home to Trinidad, how­ev­er, was an­oth­er sto­ry, she said.

Hav­ing first ap­plied in April for an ex­emp­tion, she said for six months she got no re­sponse, not even an ac­knowl­edge­ment.

While she wait­ed for a re­sponse, the fi­nan­cial and men­tal stress of be­ing away for so long took a toll on her­self and her el­der­ly moth­er back home in Trinidad.

Send­ing ex­emp­tion emails more reg­u­lar­ly, an ac­knowl­edge­ment of her re­quest came in Oc­to­ber. "When I got that re­sponse, I im­me­di­ate­ly start­ed mak­ing trav­el arrange­ments. I made arrange­ments with Jet Blue for a re­turn flight," Jagdeo said.

Leav­ing Del­hi with a neg­a­tive PCR test and a lit­tle more than US$100 in her pock­ets, she ar­rived in New York, hop­ing the sec­ond leg of her flight to Port-of-Spain would be per­mit­ted. It was not and was can­celled by Jet Blue.

Af­ter hav­ing been strand­ed in In­dia, she was now strand­ed in New York.

How­ev­er, un­like in In­dia, she had no place to stay in the US. She was al­so short of cash. Yet to re­ceive the Gov­ern­ment’s grant for strand­ed na­tion­als, and with the con­sulate closed, she des­per­ate­ly sought as­sis­tance from some­one she nev­er met be­fore–Gary Ma­habir–the founder of a sup­port group for strand­ed na­tion­als called T&T Cit­i­zens Over­seas.

"He booked a ho­tel for me for the nights I had to stay in New York, and he paid for every­thing. He even bought food for me, en­sur­ing that I was OK," she said.

Her first at­tempt to get to Bar­ba­dos failed, but her sec­ond at­tempt proved suc­cess­ful.

From be­ing strand­ed in In­dia and then New York, she was now strand­ed in Bar­ba­dos. "Every day in Bar­ba­dos, I was send­ing 100 emails per day to all the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties," Jagdeo said.

Once again, while she re­ceived no up­dates or as­sis­tance from the Gov­ern­ment, Ma­habir stepped in to as­sist her, she said.

Af­ter ar­rang­ing a ho­tel for her to stay un­til she re­ceived an ex­emp­tion to en­ter T&T, and send­ing her mon­ey via West­ern Union, he stepped in as he at­tempt­ed to get her ex­emp­tion ap­proved.

It worked. Af­ter five days in Bar­ba­dos, she was head­ing home.

"Some­one called and they said, you have one hour to book the flight. I said, what?” she re­called.

With no cash or cred­it card left, her broth­er had to book her flight home.

The tick­et cost her close to US$800, while two ad­di­tion­al pieces of lug­gage cost her an­oth­er US$200.

"I was sit­ting in the mid­dle seat and there were two peo­ple next to me–no so­cial dis­tanc­ing. There were many emp­ty seats, so more peo­ple could have eas­i­ly come home that day. The en­tire front of the plane was emp­ty," she said.

Af­ter quar­an­ti­ning for sev­en days at the Debe Quar­an­tine Fa­cil­i­ty, she com­plet­ed the sev­en days of home quar­an­tine this past week.

And while she was too in­tim­i­dat­ed to speak be­fore, she said she now speaks freely. In no un­cer­tain terms, she said the Gov­ern­ment’s han­dling of strand­ed na­tion­als and the ex­emp­tion process has been a fail­ure.

"There is ab­solute­ly no com­pas­sion. No hu­man­i­ty in these peo­ple in the Gov­ern­ment and al­so the Op­po­si­tion. Their si­lence is deaf­en­ing. They are all talk­ing, but noth­ing is be­ing done to as­sist the peo­ple out­side," Jagdeo said an­gri­ly.

"The process is im­pos­si­ble and there is dis­crim­i­na­tion. The Prime Min­is­ter’s daugh­ter ap­plied in No­vem­ber and she is al­ready home. What about all those peo­ple strand­ed since March or April?" she asked.

Jagdeo al­so won­dered why strand­ed na­tion­als are be­ing made to pay, what she called, ex­or­bi­tant tick­et prices.

While she claimed to have been let down by the Gov­ern­ment, she hailed the help re­ceived from the founder of T&T Cit­i­zens Over­seas.

"This man, who I am yet to meet, guid­ed me through every step of the process. He is do­ing the job that our em­bassies and con­sulates should be do­ing. It would have been im­pos­si­ble to get home with­out him," Jagdeo said.

Asked what ad­vice she would of­fer to oth­er na­tion­als wish­ing to come home, she said to get in con­tact with Ma­habir.

Af­ter all, she said, it worked for her.

Megan (name changed) in UK/Ger­many since Jan­u­ary

"I’m sor­ry, but I’m not pros­ti­tut­ing my­self for this Gov­ern­ment’s mis­take."

Af­ter spend­ing much of the last decade work­ing on con­trac­tu­al jobs abroad, Megan, a To­ba­go res­i­dent, re­turned to T&T in No­vem­ber 2019 with plans to start a busi­ness in the tourism in­dus­try.

The busi­ness, she hoped, would al­low her to spend more time with her daugh­ter and son, as well as the newest ad­di­tion to her fam­i­ly, Manuel. Late last year, Megan adopt­ed Manuel, a Venezue­lan mi­grant. While Manuel and her daugh­ter live in To­ba­go, her bi­o­log­i­cal son stud­ies in Trinidad.

Of­fered jobs in Eng­land and Ger­many on short-term con­tracts in Jan­u­ary, she ac­cept­ed the of­fers and flew out. She planned to put the mon­ey earned in Eu­rope in­to her dream busi­ness in To­ba­go.

Her re­turn flight on Con­dor was booked for April 7. She nev­er imag­ined then, though, that the two-month stay would ex­tend to 11 months and count­ing. Those 11 months, she said, has pushed her to the brink.

With her sav­ings dwin­dling, she’s strand­ed in Ger­many.

Mea­sur­ing about sev­en feet by six feet, the room she lives in is de­signed to hold of­fice equip­ment. "I am liv­ing in noth­ing but a cage. I don’t even go out­side be­cause of my sad­ness, and I don’t have the mon­ey to go out and spend," Megan said.

But de­spite her cir­cum­stances, it’s still an up­grade to her sit­u­a­tion be­tween March and Oc­to­ber. Hav­ing no al­ter­na­tive place to stay at the time, for those months she lived with an ex-boyfriend.

"I was liv­ing with some­one who def­i­nite­ly didn’t want me around. The air was so thick, you could cut it with a knife," Megan re­called.

On most days, there was no com­mu­ni­ca­tion be­tween the two, and when she dared to speak, his re­sponse was snap­py and con­de­scend­ing.

Fierce­ly in­de­pen­dent and out­go­ing, she be­gan to re­treat in­to her self. Anx­i­ety and de­pres­sion, things she nev­er felt be­fore, start­ed tak­ing over her men­tal space.

"I’m known by my friends as the bub­bly Caribbean girl. I’m usu­al­ly the one who sings and dances in the kitchen, but that part of me died," she said.

"It was just grey. That’s all I felt, grey. There was no colour again in my life," Megan added.

Her once un­break­able sense of pride in be­ing Trin­bag­on­ian al­so isn’t the same.

She feels aban­doned by the Gov­ern­ment and some of her fel­low cit­i­zens, in­clud­ing peo­ple she con­sid­ered friends.

"Look, I re­spect the Gov­ern­ment has to take se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures, just like all oth­er coun­tries had to take mea­sures, but they’ve wait­ed too long. The worst part of my ex­pe­ri­ence is the fact that I just don’t know when I will get home," she lament­ed.

The pop­u­la­tion, she be­lieves, con­tin­ues to be mis­led by the Gov­ern­ment pro­pa­gan­da on the is­sue of strand­ed na­tion­als, cre­at­ing fear in cit­i­zens.

The Op­po­si­tion and main­stream me­dia are al­so fail­ing strand­ing cit­i­zens, she said.

"This sit­u­a­tion is like be­ing in a camp with ter­ror­ists. That’s what I imag­ine it to be. I could not see the ter­ror­ists, but I knew they were some­where back home in Trinidad..." she said.

Fear­ing that their names will be scratched off the ex­emp­tion list, the vast ma­jor­i­ty of strand­ed na­tion­als are too scared to speak up, she said.

Based on her in­ter­ac­tions with the oth­ers on so­cial me­dia and What­sApp, she be­lieved the over­whelm­ing con­sen­sus, among them, is that the ex­emp­tion process is a fail­ure.

"The chats were over­whelm­ing for me, re­al­ly over­whelm­ing. I was see­ing peo­ple say­ing they were writ­ing 20 and 30 times a day for ex­emp­tions with­out get­ting a re­ply," she re­called.

At first, daunt­ed by the sheer num­bers of strand­ed na­tion­als, she first ap­plied for an ex­emp­tion in June.

"When I fi­nal­ly got a re­sponse from them, I was numb. There was no re­ac­tion. I didn’t know how to re­act. I felt like there was noth­ing in­side of me," Megan said.

While she bat­tled de­pres­sion, back home her chil­dren con­tin­ued to re­ly on her for sup­port, emo­tion­al­ly and fi­nan­cial­ly.

Two of her chil­dren lost their jobs dur­ing the pan­dem­ic.

"My daugh­ter is hav­ing a re­al­ly hard time deal­ing with the fact that I’m not home. I al­so miss my adopt­ed son a lot. It feels help­less," she said, her voice break­ing.

There are things she keeps from them.

First­ly, her fi­nan­cial wor­ries. In ad­di­tion to try­ing to sur­vive in Ger­many and send­ing her chil­dren mon­ey, she has to pay for rent back home in To­ba­go as well.

The mon­ey, earned dur­ing her stint in Eu­rope, she said, is com­plete­ly de­plet­ed.

"I have to sup­port them. I don’t want them to fall in­to de­pres­sion be­cause I had de­pres­sion and I didn’t want this to af­fect my kids," she said.

She al­so did not tell them about her med­ical scare. Around two months ago, she col­lapsed in her ex-boyfriend’s apart­ment. Luck­i­ly, he found her not long af­ter.

"My blood sug­ar dropped so low that I passed out. They said it was al­most like a mild heart at­tack, and if no one found me, I could have died," Megan said.

Af­ter that scare, she de­cid­ed it was time to pull her­self out the dark hole she had

found her­self in.

This, she said, is what in­spired her to be­gin speak­ing up.

"I start­ed putting back on my mu­sic. I sang and danced to force my­self out of this sit­u­a­tion. I re­fused to al­low my emo­tion­al state to be held ran­som by the Gov­ern­ment of T&T," she said proud­ly.

She said it was time for strand­ed na­tion­als to start speak­ing up, de­mand­ing bet­ter from the Gov­ern­ment and its ex­emp­tion process. Every step of the process is "con­vo­lut­ed, un­clear, and un­rea­son­ably ex­pen­sive," she claimed.

Asked what mes­sage she had for oth­ers in her sit­u­a­tion, she said, "Call your friends. Call your fam­i­ly. Get your fam­i­ly to sup­port you. Get them to call the me­dia. Stop stick­ing your head in the sand. It’s not easy but you have to do it be­cause, so far, the Gov­ern­ment has shown they do not care about us."

An­dre (name changed), farm work­er in Cana­da since Ju­ly

In Ju­ly, An­dre, as he did every year for the last 20 years, flew up to Cana­da to work on one of the farms. This year’s jour­ney, how­ev­er, was, of course, un­like any oth­er.

With T&T’s bor­ders closed, and pan­dem­ic pan­ic at its peak, An­dre and hun­dreds of oth­er lo­cal Cana­di­an farm work­ers sought ex­emp­tions from the Gov­ern­ment, even­tu­al­ly mak­ing the jour­ney to North Amer­i­ca.

The de­ci­sion by the group of farm work­ers to trav­el abroad drew crit­i­cism from some quar­ters, some­thing he still strug­gles to come to terms with.

"If I stayed in T&T, I would have been one of those sto­ries that were on TV, one of the peo­ple who lost their job and lost every­thing be­cause of the pan­dem­ic. I re­fused to be one of those peo­ple," An­dre said de­fi­ant­ly.

In June, three months af­ter the first cas­es of COVID-19 ar­rived in Trinidad, An­dre faced ar­guably the tough­est de­ci­sion of his life–stay in Trinidad with his wife and sons or risk it and go to work in Cana­da.

Yet to re­ceive any of the Gov­ern­ment’s re­lief grants, he said the bills start­ed pil­ing up and his sav­ings be­gan dry­ing up. A call from the car deal­er­ship threat­en­ing to seize his ve­hi­cle se­cured his de­ci­sion.

"What was I sup­posed to do? Sit down at home and won­der if the grant will come through? And then lose my car and my house?" An­dre asked.

"Every man and woman who came up to Cana­da on that plane took a chance. They put their lives at risk, know­ing it’s a pan­dem­ic, be­cause we just didn’t want to lose what we had," An­dre said.

While he stands by his de­ci­sion to board a char­tered flight in Ju­ly, he nev­er imag­ined that in De­cem­ber he would still be in Cana­da.

"Farm work­ers, like him­self, be­came for­got­ten souls," he said an­gri­ly.

Read­ing the neg­a­tive com­ments about farm work­ers on so­cial me­dia, ac­cord­ing to An­dre, hurt him deeply.

" 'Leave them, let the win­ter kill them.' I am read­ing all of the fool­ish­ness peo­ple are writ­ing. Peo­ple should be ap­plaud­ing me for choos­ing to keep my fam­i­ly’s head above wa­ter," he said.

Es­ti­mat­ing that there are close to 400 T&T farm work­ers still strand­ed in Cana­da, An­dre claimed that while work­ers from dozens of coun­tries came to work on the farms, on­ly T&T work­ers re­main.

De­pres­sion among the work­ers is ram­pant, An­dre said. Liv­ing in a cramped, cold space, he said, it took hold of him.

He re­called the mo­ment he told his 15-year-old son that he would not be home in time for Christ­mas, "He, lit­er­al­ly, fell on the ground, you know. I had to call out to him. He said, 'but dad­dy, you are the man who makes Christ­mas. How you mean you won’t be here?' "

Not want­i­ng their son to see how much it was af­fect­ing her, lat­er that night his wife called him back in tears, beg­ging him to come home.

To say An­dre is an­gry with the Gov­ern­ment would be an un­der­state­ment.

An­dre be­lieves the Gov­ern­ment took too long to be­gin bring­ing back farm work­ers af­ter their con­tracts on Cana­di­an farms end­ed.

If not for the in­ter­ven­tion of the Cana­di­an Gov­ern­ment and me­dia, he be­lieved the T&T Gov­ern­ment would not have tak­en steps to start bring­ing them home.

"In Sep­tem­ber, they were boast­ing that there was room in the fa­cil­i­ties, but yet farm work­ers could not come home. They don’t know what they did peo­ple," An­dre added.

If not for the gen­eros­i­ty of the Cana­di­an peo­ple and the coun­try’s Caribbean com­mu­ni­ties, he said it would have been much worse. When the farm work­ers need­ed an ex­tra meal or win­ter boots to bat­tle the freez­ing tem­per­a­tures, Cana­di­ans pro­vid­ed it.

Seek­ing an ex­emp­tion since Oc­to­ber, An­dre strug­gled to un­der­stand why cit­i­zens are re­turn­ing to Trinidad to vis­it for three weeks, when there are per­ma­nent res­i­dents, like him­self, still out­side.

When asked to de­scribe the ex­emp­tion process, he said "Failed!"

Days af­ter our in­ter­view, An­dre’s ex­emp­tion re­quest was ap­proved. Af­ter five months away, An­dre is sched­uled to re­turn home on Mon­day.

19 of the 50 farm work­ers on the farm he worked on were grant­ed ex­emp­tions, and more than 100 farm work­ers in to­tal will be on his flight. The oth­ers will have to wait their turn, as the in­fa­mous Cana­di­an win­ter con­tin­ues.

But even in the lo­gis­tics of his flight home, the Gov­ern­ment man­aged to fall short, he said.

With a neg­a­tive PCR test no more than 72 hours old re­quired, he said, there is sim­ply no way for the farm work­ers to meet that stip­u­la­tion.

"Fri­day is Christ­mas. Sat­ur­day is Box­ing Day, and that leaves Sun­day. These peo­ple have so many de­grees. They boast of be­ing lawyers, and no­body could have seen that the date could have been an is­sue?" he added.

In­stead, the farm work­ers took their tests on Tues­day and Wednes­day.

"If they tell me I can’t get on that flight af­ter I wait­ed so long, I will tell them straight I am not leav­ing the air­port. They will have to drag me out," he said.

Ryan (name changed), off­shore work­er in the Unit­ed States Since March

As an off­shore work­er with one of the world’s most well-known oil­field ser­vices com­pa­nies, Ryan has been trav­el­ling to the Unit­ed States an­nu­al­ly since 2004 for con­trac­tu­al work.

In March, two weeks be­fore T&T’s bor­ders closed, the T&T res­i­dent made the jour­ney to the US to join his moth­er who made the same trip a few days be­fore.

With long-stand­ing kid­ney is­sues, his moth­er, al­so a T&T res­i­dent, up­on the ad­vice of doc­tors, opt­ed to seek spe­cialised med­ical care.

"A friend made an ap­point­ment for her to get treat­ment for kid­ney stones in the US. She has se­vere kid­ney stones. She pass­es kid­ney stones as long as three inch­es," Ryan said. Thank­ful­ly, the pro­ce­dure and tests went well, pro­vid­ing the 69-year-old pen­sion­er with much-need­ed re­lief.

Their re­turn flight was booked for April 2. On March 22, T&T closed its bor­ders.

At first, Ryan didn’t make much of it, opt­ing to avoid a pos­si­ble scram­ble to re­turn home.

"I told her lis­ten, I’m sure they will prob­a­bly do some­thing. I said, we will wait un­til the Gov­ern­ment de­cides to open back the bor­ders," he re­called.

In the in­ter­im, they stayed by fam­i­ly and friends, who treat­ed them well. When an ex­emp­tion process sub­se­quent­ly an­nounced, they de­cid­ed, once again, to hold off a bit, ex­pect­ing scores of ap­pli­ca­tions. There were oth­ers whose need to re­turn home were more press­ing at the time, they as­sumed.

In Oc­to­ber, they sub­mit­ted their re­quests. How­ev­er, Ryan claimed that since then, they’ve heard noth­ing about their ex­emp­tion re­quests, on­ly re­ceiv­ing an au­to­mat­ed re­sponse.

While he tried to re­main pa­tient, his anger reached boil­ing point this past week when news broke of the Prime Min­is­ter’s daugh­ter be­ing grant­ed an ex­emp­tion be­fore res­i­dents like his moth­er and him­self.

"The Prime Min­is­ter said his daugh­ter has been out here for a year. Well, I’ve al­so been out here for a year. The Prime Min­is­ter said his daugh­ter lives in New York. My mom and I live in Trinidad. We both live in Trinidad," he said, ques­tion­ing the de­ci­sion.

Ac­cord­ing to the off­shore work­er, the stress of be­ing away from home so long is tak­ing its toll on his moth­er.

While she longs to re­turn home, he said, like many oth­er strand­ed na­tion­als, she is too ter­ri­fied to speak about her ex­pe­ri­ences.

"She said she re­mem­bers what hap­pened with that (Joanne) Pan­tin la­dy (who was strand­ed in Flori­da) who spoke out. She doesn’t want to end up like her, so she keeps qui­et," Ryan said.

But, while his moth­er opts for a more re­served ap­proach, he chose to go on the at­tack. He hired an at­tor­ney to in­crease his chances of get­ting an ex­emp­tion.

Ryan es­ti­mat­ed that every month it costs him ap­prox­i­mate­ly US $1,500 to live in the Unit­ed States. He is stay­ing at his un­cle’s home.

"Even when you call the ex­emp­tion of­fice to find out about your ex­emp­tion process, it’s ex­pen­sive. I have friends telling me they spent US$70 try­ing to get through on the min­istry’s phone," Ryan said.

He said every step of the ex­emp­tion process seemed "cold-heart­ed, in­ef­fi­cient, and ex­pen­sive."

"Min­is­ter Young said he was go­ing to make it a bet­ter and more ef­fi­cient sys­tem, but he did not do that," he said an­gri­ly.

Ryan, like many oth­ers seek­ing ex­emp­tions, com­plained that the cost of the repa­tri­a­tion flights was ex­ces­sive.

He es­ti­mat­ed that it would cost an­oth­er US$1,700 to pay for two one-way tick­ets back home, as well as for the PCR tests for him­self and his moth­er.

"The Gov­ern­ment is charg­ing us more than any­one else to get home. Most air­lines are charg­ing the same mon­ey as be­fore, but Caribbean Air­lines is charg­ing us more. Why is that? I don’t un­der­stand," he said.

"I’m lucky I have a job out here, but what about those with­out a job?" he asked.

CAL re­sponds

Re­spond­ing to claims by strand­ed na­tion­als that Caribbean Air­lines' tick­et prices are over­priced, CAL's Head of Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Dionne Ligoure said, "Caribbean Air­lines is aware of con­cerns re­gard­ing the fares. The air­line is do­ing its best, at this time, with­in the con­fines of its op­er­a­tions to en­sure the tick­ets are priced fair­ly."

No re­sponse from Young

Calls and text mes­sage to Young were not an­wered.