The Editor, Sir:

Air Jamaica's passengers whose flights were cancelled between Thursday and Friday August 28 and 29, 2008, gathered at the Fort Lauderdale airport from 5:00 a.m. Saturday August 30, in the hope of getting a flight to Jamaica.

To the amazement of the large crowd only one customer service representative was there attempting to answer questions.

Wrong response

When asked what arrangements were being made by Air Jamaica to deal with the backlog of passengers, the answer was a curt "None". When some passengers expressed dismay at this response, the customer service representative added brusquely: "I don't fly planes."

This caused a negative reaction among the crowd, eliciting comments such as "That's Air Jamaica for you"; "This is the last time I will book on Air Jamaica"; "That's how Air Jamaica treats ordinary people." The situation thereafter descended into chaos and security personnel had to intervene. The general feeling among passengers was that Air Jamaica did not care.

Paying passengers

No one was blaming the airline for cancelling flights at the approach of a storm, but all of us expected to be treated with a minimum level of civility as human beings and even more so as paying passengers.

Those of us who have been making the airline our carrier of choice over the years felt duly embarrassed and totally let down by the crass behaviour of Air Jamaica's front line personnel.

Air Jamaica needs to do much better than this if it wishes to recapture its disappearing goodwill, increase its business, reduce its losses or become an attractive item for takeover.

I am, etc.,

BYRON K. CHAMBERS

byronchambers@cwjamaica.com

Kingston