St Vincent denies US-based airline from landing with stranded nationals

KINGSTOWN, St Vincent, CMC – The St Vincent and the Grenadines Government has denied a United States-based airline permission to land, dashing hopes that an estimated 300 nationals employed with a US-based cruise line would have arrived home on Thursday.

The sailors, employed with the Royal Caribbean Cruises, have already spent several weeks in isolation aboard cruise ships amidst the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

They are now expected to sail home, rather than fly, and it will be weeks before they set sail, the cruise line has said.

Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves, speaking on a radio programme, said that his government would not permit the Miami airline to land two planes carrying the sailors because Kingstown had no information about their health status.

The government has been in negotiations with Royal Caribbean to get the company to pay for 14 days’ quarantine for each sailor estimated at EC$150 per night.

Gonsalves read from an email from Bishen John, the chief executive officer of the St Vincent and the Grenadines Port Authority, who has been interfacing with Royal Caribbean, indicating that discussions had been ongoing with the cruise line and its vice president Worldwide Port Operations, Captain Hernan Zini.

Zini had confirmed that Royal Caribbean has not received approval for the disembarking of crew members from the US-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the prime minister cited John as saying.

Additionally, Royal Caribbean had not repatriated any of the crew members to any Caribbean destination following the CDC’s new ‘no sail’ order on April 9, 2020.

Gonsalves said on Monday, Corsel Robertson, the chief executive officer of Argyle International Airport, received an email from Sany Rivera, ground services programme manager at the Miami-based Swift Air.

In the email, Rivera told Robertson the “contract to bring nationals home is almost complete. Below please find the updated schedule of the original request.”

However, Gonsalves said while Swift Air had made the original request on April 13, nothing came of it.

In her email on Monday, Rivera asked Robertson whether the ground handling could occur at the updated times and dates.

Rivera sent a schedule indicating that her airline was proposing to use two 737 aircraft on Thursday, April 30, to fly the Vincentians to the airport.

The flights were scheduled to land at 11:28 p.m. and 11:50 p.m. and leave within an hour of their arrival.

“When Bishen John contacted Royal Caribbean, Royal Caribbean said, ‘Listen we are not in a position to have any transfers done’,” Gonsalves said, adding that the cruise line cited an absence of approval from the CDC.

“I don’t know who is playing games or where any games are being played, if any games are being played, but Bishen John is being told something and Swift Air is sending something else.

“How can Swift Air send yesterday an email, they want clearance to come to the airport. Each of these two planes…can take up to 150.

“We don’t know anything about the health conditions, none of the things which we ask about hasn’t been addressed, so you bring them on the airport,” Gonsalves said.

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