Teens ‘abandoned’ at Nassau airport after BA flight delayed for 2 nights

UK-bound passengers from the Cayman Islands, including at least five unaccompanied teenagers, found themselves stranded in the Bahamas for two days after their British Airways flight on Saturday was delayed due to technical problems.

The teens – all returning to school in the UK after the Easter break – and the other passengers were told they needed to find their own accommodation in the Bahamas after the flight from Cayman to London, via Nassau, could not continue after the first leg of the journey.

The flight had already been delayed at Owen Roberts International Airport for more than four hours before takeoff. It landed in Nassau in the early hours of Sunday morning.

Suzie Dickson, a former Cayman Prep teacher, was also on the flight with her two children, and took the other kids on board under her wing.

Speaking from the Lynden Pindling International Airport in Nassau on Monday afternoon, where she and others were waiting to finally board their delayed flight, Dickson explained how she’d “scooped up” the teens at the airport and tried to get hotel rooms for them all.

“If I had not been there, I don’t know what would have happened to them,” she said, as when they finally got to a hotel, they were told at the check-in desk that minors could not stay on their own in a hotel room.

“There were eight of us by then,” she said.

Luckily, one of the teens had turned 18 just a few days earlier, so he was allowed to check in to another room, and four slept in each room.

Joanna Boxall, the mother of two of the children – Alex, 16, and Georgie, 13 – that Dickson scooped up, said it had been stressful to think of her children “just being abandoned at the airport” by British Airways.

She had seen them off at Owen Roberts on Saturday afternoon.

They and the other passengers who had boarded the plane were asked to deplane a while later, because of an apparent problem with the air-conditioning system.

The passengers were allowed back on board over four hours later, and the plane took off for Nassau, though some said crew members were already indicating at that point that it was unlikely the flight would continue on to London.

One passenger told the Compass he’d heard a “bit of a bang on the right-hand side” as the plane’s engines were powering up in Cayman. “They said it was something to do with the air conditioning,” he said.

“Did the captain leave Cayman knowing he’d dump us unsupported in Nassau when we could have stayed in Cayman?” that passenger asked. “He said something about they only had two minutes before their departure window closed.”

He and other passengers returned to the airport in Nassau Sunday afternoon to check in for a flight that they were told was scheduled to take off at 12:10am, but that flight was also delayed, until 5:30pm Monday.

The parent connection

Via a WhatsApp group of parents in Cayman with children in British boarding schools, Dickson had been able to let parents know that she was at the airport, once word went round that the flight was not likely to go any further than Nassau.

She knew Boxall’s son and daughter already, and through descriptions of the others from their parents on the WhatsApp group, she was able to identify them and ensured they all got together once the plane arrived in the Bahamas.

“An announcement came over the tannoy saying ‘book your own hotels’,” Dickson said.

“We didn’t have [phone] data and we didn’t a clue where to book. I now had seven kids in my care. I’d never been to Nassau before. There was no help from BA. It was like we were on our own as soon as we got off the flight,” she said.

“At 2:30 in the morning, we were still at the airport asking about hotels,” she said.

Eventually, a ground crew member told the group that they had contacted the Comfort Suites and there was transport available to take them there.

‘No faith’ in BA

When they arrived, they waited in a queue to check in for two hours, eventually getting into their beds or pull-out couches in their two rooms at 6am.

“We have no faith left in British Airways. They’ve been appalling in every way, shape and form,” Dickson said.

Another mother, Lesley Walker, said she considers it “irresponsible” of British Airways not to make arrangements for unaccompanied minors in such circumstances.

“It beggars belief,” she said. “They must have a manifesto that shows them there are children on board.

“My son is 16. He travels as an adult, but he would not be able to book a hotel room or pay for it.”

The Compass reached out to British Airways for comment and was told: “We’ve been in contact with our customers to apologise for the delay to their flight. This was caused by a technical issue with the aircraft and our teams are working hard to get them on the way as quickly as possible.

“The unfortunate delay is because of an unrelated technical issue which needs to be resolved before departure. We will cover accommodation and meal costs for customers.”

The Compass has also enquired of British Airways what responsibility it has, if any, in circumstances where unaccompanied minors are forced to overnight in a layover airport due to delays with the airline, and is awaiting a response.

Despite the frustrations and annoyances of the delayed flight, Dickson says they managed to “make lemonade out of lemons” and the group became fast friends, even managing a day trip to the waterpark at Atlantis while there.