The Chief Executive of Ireland West Airport in Knock Mr. Liam Scollan has said that he will be meeting with senior management of the flyglobespan company within the next week to iron out the difficulties that have come to light in the service being offered by the company in the past week. flyglobespan have been offering a trans-atlantic service from Knock to New York for the past six weeks or so and up to last weekend over 6,000 people had used the service. However over the past week serious problems arose because one plane was not able to fly people out of Knock Airport on Saturday as scheduled and as a result there were people stranded at JFK Airport in New York for four days. In fact alternative arrangements had to be made to accommodate all the passengers stranded in both airports – amid many complaints that the company did not treat their customers properly. The situation at the weekend was made worse by the fact that globespan use Glasgow as their base and that airport was closed after the terrorist attack last Saturday afternoon. However there were many complaints that globespan did not have any representatives to keep their customers in JFK informed as to what was happening. In Knock staff at the airport arranged hotels and B&Bs for the stranded passengers on Sunday night and when it became apparent that flyglobespan were not going to be able to fly the 146 passengers out of Knock on Tuesday night the Knock airport staff came to the rescue again and re-booked the passengers out of Shannon and other airports. They arranged buses to get them there as well. However this was a goodwill gesture on the part of the Knock Airport authorities and it was work that should have been done by the airline themselves. Speaking to the Roscommon People on Wednesday Liam Scollan said that they would be meeting flyglobespan as a matter of urgency within the next week to iron out the difficulties that arose. ‘I have arranged a meeting with flyglobespan Chief Executive Tom Dalrymple for next week. We have to iron out a number of issues, not least their communications problems that left many people stranded without information at JFK. At least our staff were able to help the people stranded here at Knock but it strictly isn’t our job to do that either – but we were glad to be able to help’ he said. ‘There are other issues too, such as the slot times available at JFK and we hope that we can sort all these problems out’ he added. ‘We will leave no stone unturned to ensure that we can get back to an efficient transatlantic service into Ireland West Airport which is of great benefit to the entire region in terms of tourism. ‘What happened over the weekend is regrettable and we have to ensure that is doesn’t happen again’ concluded Liam Scollan. There were serious complaints from the people who were stranded at both airports but particularly at JFK airport where it was alleged that people were stranded for four days without any information.
This Week’s Digital Edition
