Leave Island Any Time, Luggage In Any Terminal – two well-known jokes associated with the Caribbean’s Favourite Airline. Both, however, are often quite true. It seems that if one plane is late or cancelled due to ‘technical or operational problems’ (a broken plane or no flight crew) then it creates a domino effect across this domino-loving region, and all planes and passengers seem likely to experience some disruption. I suppose Leave Island Any Time is a little unfair – I think they leave just as soon as they can – early sometimes, late others. As for luggage, well yes, keeping up with passengers swapping planes and being delayed certainly does seem to increase the chances of your bags making an even more roundabout journey than you.

This month I flew to San Juan and back with Liat (on my way to and from mainland USA) and each leg of the journey had me, quite literally, on the edge of my seat. My flight from Dominica to Antigua left late and arrived the very minute my scheduled connection to San Juan was due to take off. Fortunately for me this flight was delayed by half an hour and I made it. But we didn’t go straight to San Juan, however. Instead we made an unscheduled stop in Tortola to drop off some Liat engineers (who had to fix a plane?) causing us to be further delayed into San Juan. Passengers with tight onward connections and facing long immigration, baggage and security lines seemed doomed and perched red-faced and anxious on the edge of their seats, willing the plane to get moving again. An American woman who had been in deep discussion with a friend about God for the whole journey made a phone call declaring ‘No, we’re not there yet. We’re in Tortilla or some place.’ I rolled my eyes to the heavens.

On the return leg my flight left a little late because it was waiting for flight crew in San Juan (where had they been?). On the way to Antigua the captain announced we would have to back-track to St Martin to pick up a load of stranded passengers (whose plane had broken or hadn’t turned up?) adding further delay to our journey. In order to fit all these passengers onto the plane they had to turf out additional Liat crew who were also on board trying to get to Antigua to work on other flights. One member of Liat’s ground staff in St Martin also tried to throw me off the plane telling me ‘You’re never going to make it anyway.’ Needless to say I fastened my seat belt, looked her in the eye and told her if other flights were delayed then there was always a chance I might. I was a seasoned Liat adventurer and I wasn’t moving. You know, she actually snarled.

We arrived in Antigua the very minute my connection to Dominica was due to leave (are you getting that feeling of deja vue yet?) but which, as it turned out, was delayed for an hour. I made it home (via a spooky night landing), about two hours late, and, amazingly, so did my bag.

Despite its troubles and the terrible frustration it can cause (I heard one American declare ‘I’ve never been on such a shit airline in my life’ – but memories are short – I bet he has) I love Liat. It is a Caribbean tradition that has become a part of us and I hope it never goes away. But I do hope it gets the funding and the support it needs to improve. I feel sorry for the staff (when they’re not snarling at me and telling me to get my arse off the plane, that is). I overheard the flight attendant on my final leg saying ‘I have absolutely no idea what’s going on.’ She was tired, hot, sweaty, and just wanted to get home like the rest of us.

As for the Caribbean’s Favourite Airline ? Well, yes, I think in a quirky way that is probably quite true – not at all for the reasons the marketing people would have hoped for however. I think a new tag line could be ‘We’ll Get You There, Probably’.

Sometimes in the night, a night that is rarely still and peaceful, ripe mangoes fall from the tree opposite and land with a crash on my neighbours’ tin roof. It wakes me up with a start every time. I wonder what it must be like for them? Do you think they lie there cringing, waiting for it – rather like anticipating the next drip of an annoying, leaky tap? It’s a huge tree. Soon all the fruit will ripen and I expect one hell of an aerial bombardment. Mango blitz.

When I go to bed at night the bar down the road is usually in full swing. They don’t play loud music so much like they used to. Now it’s dominoes, pretty serious by all accounts, with money changing hands. That may explain the loud drunken arguments, the cries of ‘Fuck you, ya mudda-ass’ to the slamming of domino tiles on makeshift wooden tables. By about 2am the games have usually finished, though I do hear all-nighters once in a while. It’s around that time that the dogs start. Perhaps they are barking at drunken domino players staggering home to disgruntled wives, maybe they have been disturbed by rats sniffing around their yards. Once one of them barks, all the dogs in the neighbourhood join in. And this can go on for hours. Somewhere between 3.30 and 4am the roosters take over. They must be living in a different time zone or too close to street lamps because their body clocks are seriously fucked up. And quite bizarrely, as with the hounds, one rooster starts a chain reaction and, before you know it, all you can hear are hundreds of crazy cocks screaming like banshees for morning. They wind down after an hour or so, just as dawn breaks. That’s when the folks over the road are up. Sometimes I hear Paul singing, chopping wood or jelly coconuts, or preparing breakfast over a smokey fire. His wife yells at the kids to get washed and dressed for school and one of them, usually the young daughter, heads up the road to an empty patch of ground where she hammers in a a few metal stakes for tethering the family goats. She returns soon after with the docile herd and leaves them there to chomp on grass and weeds for the day. More people are up and about now. I hear voices greeting each other, pausing for a brief chat with Paul, or hacking up big gobs of phlegm. That’s when I get up, feeling tired like I haven’t slept, and I put the kettle on.