Grand Cayman airport update

[Compressor]

The GCM airport is now very modern looking. Clean spacious areas, clean bathrooms, and nice shops. My skin is brown so after we sat down waiting for the flight my wife told me that I was racially profiled. I said its random. She told me if random, why does it happen so often. I don't have an answer.

Checking in to flight is organized, ticket agents VERY polite and professional. I was VERY impressed.

 

[flyboy08]

You folks shouldn't use Pablo Escobar as an Alias...

 

[mi000ke]

Look like a new “luxury full-service passenger lounge" is on the way...

Airport seeking bids for new lounge - Cayman Islands Headline News

 

[scubadada]

Hi @mi000ke

Thanks for posting. I wonder what this lounge will be, a shared airline lounge for travelers who already have lounge privileges, pay for use, both?

 

[tkaelin]

If just seeking bids now we are a ways a way from ever using it.

 

[scubadada]

If just seeking bids now we are a ways a way from ever using it.

Kind of like the new airport

 

[BDSC]

We went through the airport this past week. It was a Saturday to Saturday stay. Arriving and going thru customs was much quicker than in the past. There now seems to be enough seats for folks departing on a Saturday. Maybe not right in front of your gate but there really isn’t much difference between gates so you can find a seat. Subway and Wendy’s are now open and they were busy.

All in all a much nicer experience and I told them so. A huge improvement.

 

[Doctorfish]

I think you went through a different airport than us. When we arrived Aug 3 afternoon, the plane had to circle for .5 hours because of traffic and then when we did land there was another .5 hr wait for a gate to be available. The lineup for customs was out the door and it took the better part of an hour to get through. Once through customs, check in at Cayman Express and security was pretty quick. If we had a tight connection, we would have been out of luck.
I agree that the departure lounge is much improved from previous.

 

[mi000ke]

I think you went through a different airport than us. When we arrived Aug 3 afternoon, the plane had to circle for .5 hours because of traffic and then when we did land there was another .5 hr wait for a gate to be available. The lineup for customs was out the door and it took the better part of an hour to get through. Once through customs, check in at Cayman Express and security was pretty quick. If we had a tight connection, we would have been out of luck.
I agree that the departure lounge is much improved from previous.

I had the same experience as @BDSC a couple of weeks ago, also a Saturday arrival and departure. Not too bad of a line at immigration, and it moved pretty quickly, and there were four planes already on the ground when we landed. When we departed GC, there were lots of seats available in the departure lounge. I think the issue is if the arrival schedules get off due to weather or whatever at the departure points, you can get unintended congestion at Grand Cayman. But if things go according to schedule, it seems like the process for arriving and departing is much better than is used to be.

 

[jgttrey]

It has improved, particularly arrivals, check and ticketing. Not so much in the gate area for departures, at least from a crowding standpoint.

I think the challenge for GCM is that all the flights tend to arrive and depart in a couple of defined clusters. For about 2 hours twice a day, it has the traffic of a much larger airport. In between, not so much. That's hard to build for, or at least it makes it expensive relative to the total number of passengers. It'd be nice if as part of the negotiations with the airlines over getting gates, the authorities tried to do more to influence the schedules just a little so that it wasn't so jammed up. But, I have no knowledge about that. Maybe they've tried.