It was chaos. Hot, sticky, grumpy, chaos. Any bliss you had from your week's rest in paradise was out the window and dead on the sidewalk within minutes of entering this airport. IF, and that's a big IF you could get into the building. The lineups, snaked around the outside of this little airport.
PLS is the airport code for the main international airport in Providenciales of the Turks and Caicos in the Caribbean. While it is the main airport, it's not huge. Not big at all. Much smaller than any Walmart, that's for sure.
Delta, American Airlines, Air Canada, United and Westjet all fly here regularly. The problem is that the number of tourists had grown at a much much quicker pace than the facilities or staffing and they are simply overwhelmed.
Picture four major airlines and roughly 700 people crammed into a system where 200 would be comfortable. 1 in every 5 people could get a seat in the waiting area. 20 minutes in line to use one of the 3 stalls in the ladies room. No air conditioning. And 2 physical doors acting as 4 "airline gates" for people to exit through onto the tarmac. 4 planes trying to load weary passengers all at once and one, I REPEAT ONE, security line.
The baggage handlers, the ticket agents and security were doing their best to corral people and usher them into the "right" line. Lines that all criss crossed and intersected multiple times. Ticket lines, check-in lines and security. There was a line for families and a line for airline employees and probably random lines I didn't even know about.
Now picture impatient travellers hollering "platinum! platinum!" at baggage clerks and security agents... "I'm supposed to have priority" they'd say. "Platinum!!!" Ok, these folks added levity for me. But the other folks with crying children, and/or missing their planes after 2 hours in chaos... well, that broke my heart. I really felt bad for them.
Talking to the baggage handlers and the taxi drivers, they told me, "it's like this every Saturday. But it's good on a Tuesday... take you 15 minutes." Simple as that. It was and is, an organizational issue. They need to spread out their flight departures better. Or build an addition. Even one more security line would cut the wait in half. Things can be done. Things should be done.
I would never travel there on a Saturday again. It would not be worth the stress. And this was in July - their slow season! It was a beautiful island and a fantastic vacation, but leaving.... leaving was simply a hot mess. An ugly, hot, and avoidable mess.
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