Dear Editor,

Delta Airlines is ultimately responsible for its passengers and should therefore be held responsible for their behaviour. Had the flight attendants done a professional job the incident where a passenger activated an emergency exit could have possibly been avoided. From all eyewitness accounts the passenger was drunk and behaved in like manner even after he ‘self-landed’ at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport.

I am opposed to the views of Gerry Gouveia that the airline should not be held responsible since the passenger may have consumed his own drinks. Even worse, was his assumption that the flight attendants may have avoided confronting the passenger due to a fear of a clash of cultures; this is unheard of in the aviation industry. Passenger and aircraft safety is paramount in this business and the flight attendants are aware that this  takes precedence over cultures and other such-like considerations.

From my information, the passenger in question was seated in the first class section of the cabin in full view of the flight attendants. How then is it possible for this passenger to get drunk without them noticing? I am sure Delta is very concerned about this fiasco and is reviewing their inflight operations.

I fully support Minister Benn in his comments that the airline must be held responsible for the safety of its passengers; the story may have been different had the passenger injured himself while exiting the aircraft.
We now await the report of the Guyana Civil Aviation Authority as to what went wrong and what ought to be done to avoid a repeat in the future.

Yours faithfully,
R Persaud