Zahra Gordon

I was scheduled to arrive in Port au Prince on Saturday, 4th June, 2016 at 2:58pm. Unfortunately, it’s now Monday, 6th June, 2016, 10:04pm and I’m still in Trinidad. I was one of many Caribbean Studies Association attendees leaving from Piarco and booked with Copa Airlines who were denied boarding due to lack of World Health Organization (WHO) International Certification of Vaccination. 

We needed these cards to prove we’d all been vaccinated for yellow fever. At least 12 people were turned away and it was major disaster made no less pleasant by Copa’s poor customer service. I didn’t understand why this was happening yet again. I traveled to The Bahamas in 2012 and was stopped at Piarco for the exact same reason. It was a Sunday so I found myself at a private hospital rather than a public clinic paying $100US for the vaccine in order to be allowed to board the next flight. While preparing for The Bahamas, it never occurred to me to check for alerts related to diseases. I think that’s part of the arrogance of owning a US passport: you feel like you can just get up and go and for the most part, that’s what I’ve been accustomed to. 

You can’t be that arrogant when you’re an American who doesn’t live in America though. For Haiti, I did the research. Yellow fever was required. Malaria recommended. No visas or other paperwork being necessary, I thought I had this trip in the bag only to be hit with a Copa curve ball. Once again, I was frantically trying to find a private hospital in the Port of Spain area that would give me the WHO Health Card on a weekend and get me on my flight. I found myself in a position where I would’ve had to pay $155US this time for the vaccination and the card, which is free through the public health system. Yellow fever vaccinations last for 10 years, however, and since I got one four years ago, the doctors didn’t give it to me. I’m glad they didn’t actually, because I was already immunized and didn’t need to waste that money. 

Other attendees who were denied boarding and had purchased their own tickets with insurance were able to cancel their bookings and fly with American or other airlines though Miami or Curacao. As a travel grant recipient, I didn’t have that sort of power. I didn’t even have power as a US Citizen because practically all Copa flights pass through Panama and the requirement applies to US Citizens who’ve been in Trinidad for more than two weeks. The attendants at the airport said the information about the WHO requirement is on their website. It is not and I wasn’t able to speak to a manager because it was the weekend. I had to call the Copa hotline and speak to representatives in Colombia. They attempted to charge me fees for having to make changes to the itinerary even though my ticket was also purchased with insurance. The CSRs on the phone said I was denied boarding because I was supposed to have gotten the vaccination 10 days before I traveled according to immigration laws. I still haven’t been able to find anything online stating that WHO cards are a requirement for travel to Panama and Copa still hasn’t acknowledged that they were wrong for not having this information on their website. Others who’s tickets weren’t insured ended up paying as much as $200US in fees. It seems that Copa has a habit of arbitrarily denying passengers boarding and then charging them exorbitant re-booking fees. I really wonder if they practice this method outside of Latin America and the Caribbean. 

At one point I asked myself, “Is this the consequence of alignment with the Global South?” Racialized vaccination recommendations – because there is no yellow fever vaccination requirement for travelling to the Dominican Republic to be sure – arbitrary penalty fees and off-offhandedly being denied access to boarding? 

Travel within the Caribbean is expensive and decidedly cumbersome. I literally had to fly over The Bahamas to Miami and then back to get there from Trinidad and that is the norm for nearly every other inter-island destination. These routes are not by chance and I think we all know why it’s easier to get to New York from Trinidad than it is St. Kitts. This is part of the reason why the Caribbean Studies Association Conferences are important – they help to build a united, scholarly voice surrounding issues like these. Tomorrow morning, I head back to the airport. I have gotten the silly WHO card. I have made a million complaints and lost three-days of travel time. My reading has to be rescheduled, if it can. I’m just hoping to make it to Haiti to do the work and make the connections that counter all this colonialism.