Terrible System, Great People

The wait at San Salvador continued to grow and after about 2 hours of waiting as each person in our group got their boarding passes, we find out that the flight we are taking has been cancelled for some (still unknown) reason.  Due to this event there is now no longer enough room for  our entire group to make it to La Ceiba on Saturday.

TACA airlines has to be still in the 1990’s in terms of computer system, as the information desk was still required to type out each individual boarding pass and the system would take up to 45 mins per person to clear and print the passes.  God is gracious though and has put some very helpful people that truly seemed to care about our comfort.  This is what resulted:

First, 12 members of our group were sent a round-about way through Tegucigalpa, to San Pedro Sula, to La Ceiba and arrived at 7:30pm.  These each received a $200 voucher (transferrable, hopefully we can use these on future trips).  The remaining 5 of us (the Vandegeests, Greg Wates, Beth and me) were all delayed until the 7:15 flight out of San Salvador to Tegucigalpa.  This meant an additional 5 hour wait and that we would not be arriving in La Ceiba that evening.  We were given $300 vouchers, free meals and hotel for the night. They were nice enough to let us wait in the VIP lounge, which afforded us a quiet, peaceful place to get some rest and play some cards.  They also provided us with a few meals.  We arrived to Tegucigalpa last night and they had arrangements made for us for transportation, a hotel, meals and transportation back to the airport.  I was very impressed with the level of customer service.  A representative of TACA actually sought us out as we waited for our luggage (which all arrived) to give us the information.  This was definitely from God, as attempting to find and book a hotel in a foreign country on little notice with little information about the areas would be a nightmare.  After a short meal and a good nights rest we are up gathering our items to run to breakfast before heading back to the airport.  We are scheduled to arrive at 9am to join the rest of our group that I got confirmation arrived safely last night.

Please pray that everyone was able to get some rest and refreshment last night and that God will continue to use us (and test us) in our time here in Honduras.