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Martinique-bound passengers stranded here, police called in
by The Daily Herald
Posted: Aug 20, 2007 14:07 UTC
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PHILIPSBURG - Forty-seven passengers headed to hurricane-ravaged Martinique from Atlanta were left stranded in St. Maarten Sunday and were put out of the in-transit section of Princess Juliana International Airport by local police when the situation there threatened to get out of control.
The passengers who arrived here on a Delta Airlines flight claimed that they had been duped by the airline about the final leg of their flight home, where they were hoping to join their loved ones and friends in the wake of the damage caused by Hurricane Dean on Friday.
Their bags were tagged Atlanta-St. Maarten, then onward to Martinique, and their boarding passes were issued with Martinique as the final destination.
Looking back, many of the passengers believed they had been tricked by Delta and that the airline simply had wanted them gone from the Atlanta airport where they could have stirred major media attention with CNN or Fox News.
Their plight, which started in Atlanta on Saturday when their original flight reportedly was sent to St. Lucia instead to rescue stranded American nationals, was further compounded by the alleged physical abuse of many of them by local police.
The group had reportedly stayed in the in-transit section at Princess Juliana International Airport for some two hours after arriving here, hoping to get to Martinique. When they learnt they would not, they demanded to speak to someone in charge.
That insistence was met with nearly 20 armed police officers with police K-9 dogs who entered PJIA around 4:15pm and ordered them to leave. The passengers, including women, children, a pregnant woman and an injured woman were all thrown out of the arrival terminal to fend for themselves.
However, according to local Delta Airlines General Manager Charlene van der Linde, the passengers knew what their fate would be if they came to St. Maarten.
“At the last minute, the final leg of their trip to Fort-de-France was cancelled. All passengers were advised of this in Atlanta and given an opportunity to find an alternative means of getting to Martinique. The 47 passengers refused and said they were going to St. Maarten,” Van der Linde said in a statement to The Daily Herald.
She said, “We made the announcement in English and in French, explaining that if they came to St. Maarten they would be on their own in terms of getting to Martinique.”
“The passengers were properly informed by Delta,” She reiterated.
She said Delta had tried to accommodate the passengers, but due to technical reasons in Fort-de-France, that leg of the flight had been cancelled.
Fabrice Blacodon had a different version of what had happened. He told this newspaper, moments after leaving the arrival terminal at the PJIA, “Delta gave us fake boarding passes from St. Maarten to Martinique.” He explained that starting in Atlanta, they had had to sit on the ground for an entire night and wait for a flight on Sunday. In the end, a flight was arranged on Sunday for them to travel and the plan was for them to travel to Martinique from Atlanta with a transit stop in St. Maarten.
They landed and learnt that they could not get to Martinique because that leg of the flight had been cancelled. To get some answers as to what they would have to do to get home, they stayed for two hours in the in-transit section at PJIA.
But then, he said, suddenly police came and started “grabbing people.” He said some had been scratched and hurt, and had been thrown to the ground. He said he could not understand their behaviour, and singled out a female police officer in civilian clothes who “manhandled a woman, wounding her on one finger.”
That police officer later told reporters at the airport, “I almost had to claim US $350 for my shades. We told them to put their cameras away and they did not listen.”
Dr. Marilyn Sephocle, a professor at Howard University, said she had documented every step of the experience with Delta and intended to tell the world.
She said, “I’ve never been treated like this anywhere in the world before, and never expected this kind of treatment from my own Caribbean people in St. Maarten. It is our turn in Martinique to suffer from a hurricane, that’s why we want to go home and see what’s happening, but it may be your turn next, St. Maarten, and we will be there to help you.”
She said that in St. Maarten a Mr. Josefa had taken her passport when he had seen her writing and said he would send her information to Washington DC, saying, “I am a threat.” She also singled out an Inspector John as being extremely physical and said he had made threats to arrest one woman who was trying to turn off her camera.
Heritage University anthropologist Eric Diener said he too had been roughed up by police. He said they were worried because they had been told they would not arrive home before Wednesday and there would be no compensation from Delta.
Delta’s local representative said the airline did not compensate passengers for interruptions caused by hurricanes.
This newspaper later learnt that the local government in Guadeloupe had intervened and arranged for the passengers to be put up in a hotel in French St. Martin pending the outcome of negotiations with Delta on their flight to Martinique.
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