This week, Minister of Tourism Charles Fernandez and the head of the Immigration Department will meet to address Saturday’s airport delays for 800 passengers.
The goal is to improve immigration processes for the expected 25,000 season travelers.
Antigua recently hosted five cruise ships, with two simultaneously homeporting for the first time.
Homeporting operations in Antigua and Barbuda will continue until March 2024, with specific dates set.
The final exercise is on March 9th, 2024. Special chartered flights are anticipated at V.C Bird International for an exciting weekend.
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Here we go again another demonstration of how incompetent this government is…. can’t even host a few cruise ships
They aren’t ready for this, i was traveling yesterday and after waiting on line for a good time to go thru security and immigration, a person arrived at the immigration area with almost 50 cruise ship passengers and went in front of everyone waiting in line. I told the lady that this wasn’t right and she told me she didn’t care what i habe to say and that trere was nothing a could do about it. I made her know that this kind of actions were unacceptable and that they are showing the stay over tourist, that the government don’t care about them( the lines were full with tourist) and that those cruise passengers were more important. The lady was furious and went a talked to another lady inside both looked at me while they talked and It was at this point that they created a separate line for the cruise passengers and us. They need to know that, the stay over passengers are as important to our country as those from the cruise ships!
Didn’t they have months to prepare for this? So you fired the lady and have no alternative measures in place to get a seamless transition for your customers.
C’mon Gatson, get something right for once. The people of Antigua need a win for crying loud. You are 0 for 10 since the election.
Embarrassing! Why can’t Max ‘The Invisible Man’ Fernández get the simplest things correct.
WHERE WAS HIS PLAN B OR C?
Max, give Brixtonian a call … 😁
We already know that the ABLP cabinet ministers have no organisational or planning skills. However, there are several layers of officialdom below them who really ought to have picked up the slack. Not least of these is the Chief Immigration Officer who once again we now find is sleeping at the helm.
We are reliably informed that there will be a meeting of the minds to plan the way forward from the current debacle. Where, I wonder, will they begin? Let me offer a clue to the clueless.
How long does it take the immigration officer to process each arriving passenger? I used to make point of accurately timing this every time I arrived at the airport years ago. Amazingly, it was always EXACTLY the same- 90 seconds per passenger. This is utterly ludicrous. For comparison, the same procedure in St Maarten was literally 5 seconds.
The bigwigs need to establish stringent service level agreements which require immigration to process passengers at a rate of at least six per minute starting IMMEDIATELY. Failing which heads must roll!
Yep @ Ivor Biggun, Katrina Yearwood sleeping at the ‘Immigration’ wheel once again.
We need the right people running the country. Simple!
Really embarrassing happening at a time when we should have been prepared for crowds at this peak time. We seem to be always reactive rather than being proactive.
I’ve never spent 5 seconds in sxm in my 40 visits.
What suggestions do you guys have? Let’s support the tourism industry and don’t make it too political.
Share your thoughts let’s go it’s up to the immigration department and other entities involved to apply it for the betterment of the nation.
Remember do good always
I believe I was almost run off the road by one of the buses that transport the cruise passengers to and from the airport. Locals watch out. They will mow you over and keep going. Seems theirs lives are more important than ours.
MAX FERNÁNDEZ,WHAT IS THERE TO INVESTIGATE? YOU PEOPLE IN POSITIONS OF LEADERSHIPS ARE SO INEPT.IF YOU WERE EMPLOYED BY MY COMPANY,YOU WOULD BE FIRED FOR THIS SCREW UP. YOU KNEW ABOUT THIS OPERATION WAY IN ADVANCED.YOU SHOULD HAVE MET WITH THE MINISTER AND HIS SENIOR STAFF RESPONSIBLE FOR THE IMMIGRATION AND AIRPORT OPERATIONS,COME WITH PLANS A,B AND C.IN MY OPINION, IT IS AN EMBARRASSMENT FOR ANTIGUA.
Here is my Opinion to make this seamless:
1.Get the E-card system on-line so that the immigration and security process d0nt take so long for regular stY over passengers.
2. When the ship doc get the official bring the passports to the immigration department at the Quay and process the passengers outbound… so even if they must go in the terminal, it’s just a security check or as they arrive drive them directly to the plane steps..
3. Refurbish the security area of the old terminal and have the cruise passengers processed there. One a Saturday there’s at least 12-17 international flights and not to counter the transit flights going to Montaerrat, Anguilla, Barbuda, BVI and St. Barths just to name a few.
4. The Immigration officers and ABBA security workers need to take pride in their jobs and show up… on a regular day there’s like 20 or more booths and 4 -10 officers working… As a nation and a people we need to do better…
5. The Ministers of Parliament and the position holders in Tourism needs to listen to the man on the ground more…as they see the day to day operations.
Looks like Ms Francis has made her absence felt in less than a week. Not the time for a big changing of the guards. Investigation closed. Gaston is a real clown.
From my observation when travelling last week
the pre check of boarding pass was the problem –only one person on duty.
the security scanning only had one line running, the attempted to open second line but either it not working or lack of staff meant after 10 mins they sent passengers back to first line.
How much are we paying for all these SSS workers strutting around and what authority and why is it necessary for SSS staff to check boarding passes at plane door?? No where else is this done!! Someone mek $$ somewhere!!!
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