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Thursday, February 20, 2025

200 US citizens and residents repatriated

by

1785 days ago
20200401

Over 200 Unit­ed States (US) cit­i­zens and per­ma­nent res­i­dents were yes­ter­day repa­tri­at­ed. 

The char­ter flight, which was co-or­di­nat­ed by the US Em­bassy and re­ceived an ex­emp­tion from Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young to this coun­try’s on­go­ing trav­el ban due to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, left the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port around mid­day yes­ter­day. 

Pas­sen­gers on the flight were ad­vised to be at the air­port, which is cur­rent­ly op­er­at­ing on­ly do­mes­tic and car­go flights, three hours in ad­vance and when a news team from Guardian Me­dia ar­rived around 10 am, pas­sen­gers had al­ready be­gun the check-in process. 

While some pas­sen­gers wore masks and gloves, oth­ers wore no per­son­al pro­tec­tive equip­ment as they said their last good­byes to their lo­cal rel­a­tives and friends, who dropped them off. 

For the most part, every­one present ob­served so­cial dis­tanc­ing as the queue to check-in snaked around the de­par­ture hall of the air­port. 

One cou­ple was seen stand­ing with their Labrador Re­triev­er, Yo­gi Bear, for whom they pur­chased a US$1,500 tick­et to ac­com­pa­ny them aboard the flight. 

“He usu­al­ly trav­els in a dog crate in the car­go area. He is re­al­ly ex­cit­ed be­cause it is his first time in the cab­in,” they were over­heard say­ing to a mem­ber of the US Em­bassy staff, who stopped to pet him. 

One el­der­ly pas­sen­ger, who agreed to speak to Guardian Me­dia on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty, claimed that he strug­gled to pur­chase the tick­et as he on­ly came to Trinidad with a small quan­ti­ty of cash when he came on a short trip, two months ago. 

“I paid US$500 to come here and now the tick­et is three times that. I didn’t mind stay­ing but I have to get my med­ica­tion,” he said while point­ing to his ban­daged right fore­arm. 

An­oth­er pas­sen­ger, who said she had to catch a con­nect­ing flight to La­Guardia Air­port in New York, said she was hap­py to re­turn home to her young daugh­ters, who she left in the care of their god­moth­er. 

“It is a stress­ful and bit­ter-sweet mo­ment be­cause I am leav­ing my moth­er and I don’t know what is go­ing to hap­pen to her,” the teary-eyed woman said. 

While the news team from Guardian Me­dia were present, staff from the Min­istry of Health were seen us­ing hand-held in­fra-red ther­mome­ters on the pas­sen­gers be­fore they were al­lowed to make their way to the check-in desk. 

Pas­sen­gers were ad­vised to pur­chase a bot­tle of wa­ter be­fore they cleared the se­cu­ri­ty check­point lead­ing to the de­par­ture lounge as there were no re­fresh­ments avail­able for sale in that area at the time and none would be pro­vid­ed on the flight. 

In a press re­lease is­sued around 5 pm yes­ter­day, US Em­bassy press spe­cial­ist Charleen Thomas an­nounced that the flight land­ed safe­ly. She not­ed that the pas­sen­gers were among 25,000 that were repa­tri­at­ed by US Em­bassies across the world. 

“A big thank you to the su­perb staff at the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port. Con­sular Chief Cindy Diouf and her team were on hand to en­sure all went well. #Amer­i­can­sHome,” Thomas said.  

Last week, the British High Com­mis­sion or­gan­ised for some of its cit­i­zens to be repa­tri­at­ed on a sim­i­lar char­ter. 


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