Flying Cayman Airways to Cayman Brac

[divezonescuba]

There were no significant weather issues on Saturday.

Here is Cayman Airways idea of documenting the "cancellation" of their flight. I wrote the sign and the gate agent agreed to hold it up. The photo was taken around 4:00 PM. Other passengers seeking documentation also took pictures. The manager refused to provide any documentation in writing and she incorrectly said that the website indicated that the flight had been cancelled. The website actually indicated that the flight was on time six hours after it was suppose to have left.

Its pathetic that the manager wouldn't even post that 4004 and 4006 (11:15) were cancelled on the gate announcement board to let the customers know what was going on. On the gate announcement board, it is referring to 2406 which was the mostly empty unscheduled 18 minute 737 flight to Grand Cayman at 6 PM. Lucky for us the 737 was sitting idle on Grand Cayman otherwise who knows when would have come back.

I have subsequently been given the personal contact information to the Minister of Tourism and intend on informing him of this incident as it has had an adverse impact on the future Cayman Brac tourism of many of the people on those two flights.

 

[ronski101]

4 of us were caught up in that 9 hr+ cayman air fiasco on sat. The cayman Brac counter people lied to us all day long and did not give out any truthful information forcing many of us to try and reschedule connecting flights on the one available phone based upon erroneous information. what it boils down to is they don't care cus they got a monopoly if you want to go to LC or Brac. The only reason they finally flew us off at 6pm to GC was they didn't want to get stuck putting us up for the night. They were only interested in saving fuel and operating costs at customers expense. we used them in years past without any problem but now it is just one big cattle drive......can you say Mooooooo........

 

[vincent54]

I fly into Brac all the time and never have an issue. It can get hectic on Saturdays, but they try to accurate everyone from what I observe. Cheers

 

[divezonescuba]

The property owner we rented from thinks this is a problem.

He put us in personal contact with the Minister of Tourism. The Minister has officially forwarded the situation to the CEO of Cayman Airways.

I was Cc'ed in the message, so I now have the CEOs direct email address.

Let's see what the CEO has to say.

 

[divezonescuba]

So, I was contacted by a representative of Cayman Airways after the Minister of Tourism forwarded my email to the CEO of Cayman Airways, Fabian Whorms.

After two telephone calls and two email messages, I was told to submit receipts for the additional expenses that we had incurred as a result of being stranded and kept in the dark by Cayman Airways.

Unfortunately, after sending in my receipts, the representative Ivan Forbes will no longer respond to my emails.

Today, I contacted Mr. Whorms again to try to resolve this situation and will keep those interested updated.

I would be happy to provide the email addresses to both the Minister of Tourism and the CEO of Cayman Airways to anyone who had this problems as well.

 

[jdcpa]

This is not a complaint, this is just me stating my experience.

I have found that officials/employees in the Cayman Islands don't view responding to emails as Americans do. I have no idea why, it just seems to be the culture/way they are.

Americans respond promptly. My experience with the Caymans is they respond slower than Americans. The more emails you send, the slower their response. They seem to finally quit communicating after a few emails. I wish I was better at asking questions so that wouldn't happen.

I have sent emails to the Hon Moses Kirkconnell and never gotten a response.

I gave up after years of trying to communicate via email with the Sir Turtle Club customer service. THey had made a gigantic mess out of my account. My efforts were to no avail. They finally just quit answering my emails. You can't make them answer.

Honestly, I am a little surprised you got a response.

Keep us posted.

 

[divezonescuba]

I think the reason why we got a response is that the Hon Moses Kirkconnell somewhat knows the property owner of the complex that we rented. We understand through the grapevine that the Minister is concerned about the tourism economy of Brac and the fact that the complex has an impact on the Brac economy.

I was surprise when they called me on the phone not once, but twice. I guess I am now surprised that they seem like they are not interested. There's a theory called the Hawthorne effect. One aspect of that theory may apply here. That is some people are satisfied when they have a chance to vent on a subject, even though there is no resolution.

If people can't or won't go to Brac because of Cayman Airways, I would hope that anyone interested in the tourism economy of Brac would be helpful.

 

[divezonescuba]

Duplicate

 

[divezonescuba]

Update.

After 10 weeks, I received a check from Cayman Airways for our hotel and cab fare on Grand Cayman which we incurred as a result of being stranded without information on Cayman Brac. Anyone who wants to deal with their situation can use ours as justification to receiving funds back at least for the lodging and cab fare.

This was only the result of an inordinate number of phone calls, email messages, and delays to and with Cayman Airways. None of that should have been necessary and we should have received a full refund.

In their final correspondence to us, they restated their non-responsibility for any connecting flights missed as a result of their failure to fly. They also finally admitted that the issue was a result of "mechanical problems". They also stated that they would only cover the rebooking of flights if we had bought our entire tickets directly from them. Well, guess what, you can't go to and from most places in the US through Cayman Airways. So, that is really an empty promise.

While I do commend Cayman Air corporate headquarters for assuming some eventual responsibility for their actions, we cannot trust the component of Cayman Air that operates between Grand Cayman and Cayman Brac / Little. You cannot depend on that group to either get you on the island or off, or even communicate to you why you are being stranded.

As I have previously communicated, this is a shame since Cayman Brac offers so much to divers and was going to become our go to place.

As it stands, if we ever go back to Cayman Brac, it will be through Miami on the 737 that flies directly to Cayman Brac and totally bypasses Grand Cayman. Better yet, perhaps some other airline will eventually service Cayman Brac so we will not have to deal with Cayman Airways again.