BWIA must put itself in order
Kaieteur News
December 22, 2004
About a year and a half ago, I wrote an article entitled “ No one will respect you unless you respect yourself.” This message is again timely, following the absolute bedlam concerning the non- arrival of passengers' baggage by BWIA.
For days now, arriving passengers on BWIA have been having problems uplifting their baggage. This is not the first time that this has happened and it will not be the last, unless we are prepared to change the situation.
There is no other country in the world in which this could have happened without serious repercussions. In any other part of the world, the airline would have faced serious lawsuits and would have been flooded with claims for compensation. But in Guyana , this country will be prepared to sit idly by and suffer the loss of visitor confidence in the country.
Guyana is the most lucrative route for BWIA, so why are Guyanese accepting this sort of treatment? We have to demand a better service because without Guyana , BWIA would have already folded up. Guyana is the lifeline of BWIA.
This holiday season promised to be the best we have ever had with a record number of arrivals. Yet all the plans we had for promoting Guyana as a good tourist destination at Christmas time has come to naught because of this terrible situation with the delays in the baggage of passengers.
All the hard work put in by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Tourism has been cancelled out because of this very frustrating situation that has developed over the past few days and which has made headlines in the local news.
This is not the first time that there have been complaints about the level of service provided by BWIA. I recall that for over ten years now, Uncle Freddie has been writing about this situation. And only recently the leader of the opposition was forced to complain about the level of service from BWIA.
I want to repeat for emphasis what I said earlier. I said that no one is going to respect you unless you first respect yourself. So please, Guyana , it is time BWIA gives us some respect and the only way that is going to happen is for us to begin by respecting ourselves. NO
ONE WILL RESPECT YOU UNLESS YOU RESPECT YOURSELF!
In my article of over one year ago, I said that respect is never given to anyone; it has to be earned.
John Hershel wrote, “Self-respect is the cornerstone of all virtue.” “He that respects himself is safe from others. He wears a coat of mail that none can pierce,” wrote Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
And there was B. Forbes who once said, “Without self-respect, there can be no genuine success. Success won at the cost of self-respect is not success- for what shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his self-respect?”
Self-respect is something that should be valued. As Mahatma Gandhi said, self-respect cannot be taken away from you without your consent. People must be prepared to make sacrifices to preserve their self-respect.
Abrahim Herschel wrote that “Self-respect is the fruit of discipline; the sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to ones self.”
Self-respect means employing lawful and respectable means to achieve one's goal. It means shunning ignorance and violence.”
And therefore all Guyanese must first demand an explanation and a public apology from BWIA for the dreadful events of the past few days. Moreover, they must press their financial claims against the airline for the discomfort caused. An apology, matched by compensation for inconveniences caused will force BWIA to put itself in order.
Unless the airline is forced to dig into their pockets to compensate Guyanese, this “eye pass” will continue.
I also call on the Guyana Government to begin to set some standards that airlines will have to comply with if they are to continue to receive a license to do business in Guyana . If these standards cannot be met, then the license should be withdrawn or still, penalties imposed.
If we cannot respect ourselves, we should not expect others to respect us.