Port Authority officials discussed the long lines seen snaking out from the Cyril E. King Airport during an emergency board meeting Friday. Airport Manager Jerome Sheridan told the VIPA governing board that the federal government had approved funding for the Transportation Security Administration, whose employees have been working without pay for a month.
“However, the Port Authority has been working with the Tourism department to put processes in place to make sure that the traveling public moving through the Cyril E. King Airport remains under cover,” he said. “We’ve also had several meetings over the last weeks with the airlines — to include an emergency meeting in my capacity and power with the airlines, both the local management and their corporate folks — to put in an emergency directive of how we’re going to process folks in the King airport terminal as to alleviating folks from being outside in the elements.”
VIPA Board Chair Willard John noted that the recent airport traffic jams have, in a sense, signaled good news for the territory.
“And in another respect, it’s challenging,” he said. “It’s good because we’re having a record number of people visiting St. Thomas — so that tells us that there are more people interested in traveling and coming to the Virgin Islands. The challenge … is trying to accommodate them with the facilities that we have.”
Jennifer Matarangas-King, the newly-installed commissioner of tourism, said it’s been “all hands on deck.”
“It didn’t really matter — whatever your role was at Tourism, you were helping, working the lines,” she said. “I had a chance to work the lines too. I think people were very grateful. They understood, because it’s a nationwide issue, and they appreciated the fact that there were greeters and other people there handing out water and at least engaging, and doing their best to move the line along.”
