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The
LIAT Airlines Experience
From GypsyNester.com
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Traveling
is certainly made easier when you heed the warnings of those
who go before you. Especially when the path winds through
the tangled Second World jungle that is “island time.”
Laid back charm aside, island time can sometimes make the
simplest plan mindboggling complex. In hopes that you may
avoid a few of these pitfalls, the GypsyNesters relay this
tale:
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We arrived at
the LIAT counter in the St. Croix airport the proper two hours early
for a 30 minute flight--eagerly anticipating our whirlwind 25th
anniversary trip to St Maarten. Perhaps, in hindsight, we should
have seen the possibility of things going awry when our check-in
agent was ignoring the phone while waiting on us. We got into a
conversation about how rude it was to answer the phone when you
have real live customers in front of you and she remarked, “Why
should I answer the phone anyway? They always want to know if the
flight's on time and we don't know.” Huh? We were just about
to ask if the flight was running on time. We decided not to.
We remained
optimistic, joked a bit with the agent and headed towards our
gate, but never got past a room that we would become painfully
familiar with...the dreaded waiting for security room. Knowing
we had a big night ahead of us, we napped. We memorized the gift
shop. We went to the bathroom--just for the distraction. We heard
a TSA Agent snark to the room in general, “It's LIAT—Leave
Island Any Time.” We played a game of
guess which “chup” (the West Indian teeth-sucking noise
of displeasure) was coming from which person by critiquing the
pitch and timber of the individual rapid saliva inhalation. By
the time we had formulated a foolproof strategy for ending the
war in Iraq (complete with detailed charts and graphs), we were
finally shuttled through security and deposited into another room.
No gift shop, no airline rep, and a much smaller bathroom to entertain
ourselves with. Even the boisterous musicians who had been jazzed
from their performance the night before at the St. Croix Christmas
Festival had finally lost their groove and began drinking heavily.
That, of course, made for some bang-up people-watching.
We ended up
getting to our destination right in the teeth of The Princess
Juliana International Airport's rush hour--right after two international
jumbo jets disembarked. Customs was a rip-roarin', assholes-to-elbows
blast! Kudos to Sint Maartin customs folks for processing the
mass of humanity dumped on them so quickly—no island time
here, mon! We hailed a beat up Subaru taxi for the short ride
to our hotel. Not too short though,for the cabbie to get in the
phrase that we were getting to know all too well, “You took
LIAT?! Leave Island Any Time.”
After a fabulous
one-night anniversary trip on the island (see our essay), we headed
back to the airport for our return flight to St. Croix. Not before
we took a brutal teasing from our taxi driver when he asked what
airline--“LIAT? Late LIAT? You mean Leave Island
AnyTime?” Then we saw the sign (see the photo
above). Under the sign resided two young, beautiful check-in agents,
who were so frustrated by the long line of chupping, angry-hornet-like
travelers and inadequate technology that one of them actually
was banging her computer's keyboard with her fist in frustration.
We got out of there just in the nick of time, with a handwritten
boarding pass (in ink even!) --a girl fight was about to break
loose.
We'll leave
you with a last bit of advise as we are writing from St. Croix
minus Veronica's beautiful “anniversary” dress and David's
only suit:
If you decide
to fly Leave Island AnyTime against
your better judgment—don't check your luggage!
David & Veronica,
GypsyNester.com
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