Although checks were made using surveillance footage from the Cheddi Jagan International Airport (CJIA), the passport of a United States-based Guyanese woman that went missing during her check-in was never found.
Local representative for Dynamic Airlines Gerry Gouveia told Stabroek News that although the passport belonging to Lilawattie Persaud was never recovered, she secured travel documents and the airline transported her and her family out of the country.
Persaud, who returned to Guyana from the United States for the 50th independence anniversary celebrations in May, was stranded while being processed for departure when her passport was misplaced after she handed it over to two Dynamic Airlines check-in agents at the CJIA, on June 11.
“From one table to the next table, the girl and boy that was there, they take the passport from my hand to their counter, then they take the passport and bring it to the next counter while the girl check the foodstuff I was carrying,” she had related. “From their hand, it never come back in my hand,” Persaud said.
The woman, who was travelling with her husband and 16-year-old son at the time, had handed in the family’s documents together but her passport was not returned. Persaud’s husband was then told to go ahead and pay the departure tax for himself and their son, while she was told that her passport was missing. Her husband and son refused to board the plane without her.
Persaud, a housekeeper at a hotel in New York, had explained that she was worried about the security of her job and had hoped that her employers would be understanding of her plight.
Gouveia said that Dynamic kept its promise to transport the family back to the United States for free and they returned on June 19.
