Late Tuesday Afternoon, nearly a week after the March 9th Antigua Cabinet meeting, the Antigua and Barbuda Hotel Association sent out an e-mail stating that they had, “not yet received an updated Travel Advisory with the revised protocols featuring changes such as the removal of arrival testing and mask mandates, which were presented in the Cabinet Notes of March 9 2022”
The Travel Advisory was not sent by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs until late Tuesday, which caused mass chaos for travelers to Antigua and Barbuda Wednesday morning. American Airlines did not have time to update their flight advisory system which caused passengers around the world to be denied boarding on their way to Antigua and Barbuda.
The Trumpet reached out to American Airlines, who’s Amanda Harris said, “They had not been given notice of the change in travel requirements and thus were unable to update their global computer system”.
She stated that, “Antigua is one of our most strict destinations and if they allowed a passenger to board without a negative Covid test, they may very likely be denied entry into Antigua and put on a flight back to the US”
As such, countless passengers were denied boarding in cities throughout the United States. We reached out to several resorts in Antigua that stated they have had calls all morning from upset guests that were denied boarding by American Airlines, and they expect it to increase as the day progresses.
One resort also noted that even if the travelers have a copy of the updated Travel Advisory released late yesterday afternoon, they are not being allowed to board American Airlines because gate agents are not able to override the requirement in their system.
They also noted that if this continues for all the arrivals for the day it will result in a loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
