Piarco International Airport, Trinidad and Tobago

Ok. I am going to start this one with my arrival in Trinidad on Feb 14^th (my birthday) 2015. I went to Trinidad for carnival and my carnival experience was amazing. I started with the positive because I don’t have much positive things to say about arrivals at Piarco Airport. My flight arrived at 11.15, so did another flight from somewhere in the United States. However, this should not have been a problem because it was carnival season, and they knew that several flights were coming in. They SHOULD have been prepared. When I got out of the plane and walked down to immigration I was shocked. There was a line to the line up. Yes you read that right. There was one long line that wrapped around twice, just to get to the real line, which was the line to immigration. That line, the real line was beyond long. The airport workers were extremely rude, no customer service, there was not even a representative to greet us and tell us what was happening or if we were even standing in the correct line. There were people in the line who were Trinidad residents or CARICOM passport holders, and they didn’t know there was another line way ahead, which was a shorter line just for them. After about forty minutes they realized they were in the wrong line. There were three immigration officers at separate booths doing absolutely nothing. They were looking after flight crew and diplomats. After all the flight crew and the few diplomats had gone through, you would think the officers would help with the long line and signal people to come to their booths. Nope, that was not the case. A man went up to the officer and asked politely if she could help quicken up the process and take on people from the line. She replied “ I can’t do anything it’s my supervisor’s call.” Are you kidding me? So what are three people doing there, clearly nothing. It was tourist season, carnival season which is the countries biggest tourist season. If you had any appreciation for the tourists or knowledge of customer service every officer would be assisting someone and making the process go faster. To make a long waiting story short, I finally made it through immigration and was united with my friends at 1.30 am the following morning. Over two hours waiting in two lines.

            Now when I was leaving Trinidad a week later. I got to the airport three hours early, because Piarco is actually its own town and not in the capital of Port of Spain. So if you’re coming from the city centre like I was, it will take a good hour to get to the airport. That was with good traffic, so give yourself time. My check-in was fast and the Caribbean airline workers were pleasant. There was an exhibition on carnival and the steel pan near the fast food restaurants. I really liked the exhibit and found it interesting. The airport is very clean and there are big photos on the wall of past and present Prime Ministers and Presidents. One thing you should note, most of the eating options, which are almost all fast food restaurants like Subway and KFC, are outside of airport security. I went through the first checkpoint which is a man who checks your passport and boarding pass. Once you go through that checkpoint, there are several duty free shops and a money changing centre. Then you go up an escalator and you make a right or left depending on your gate number. Then you reach security. The security officer was very sweet and after looking at my boarding time, she told me that I had a two hour wait time and that there were no eating places past security. So I exited through customs and explained to them that I had checked in and was just going out again to get food because I was very early. The man at customs was rude for no reason but he just seemed like a person who loved to give orders.  After I got my subway sandwich I went through the first checkpoint once again, got to my gate and then went through security. The departure gates are simply departure gates and no more. There is a gift shop that sells souvenirs, magazines, cookies, crackers and water and another gift shop that sells t-shirts. I also participated in a survey done my Caribbean airline workers on my carnival and overall Trinidad experience. So remember, give yourself time to get to Piarco, It’s better to be there and have time to spare than be stressing about missing your flight while you are stuck in traffic. Also remember that all of the eating places are outside of security, so grab your grub before you head to your gate.