YV&C International Yacht Vacations & Charters Magazine reports:

This morning I left home at 3 AM to take my 7:15 American Airlines flight (AA 815)  from New York's JFK to San Juan Puerto Rico and connecting to St. Maarten with AA 1151 flight scheduled for 1:10 PM from San Juan to St. Maarten.

My driver picked me up on time at 3 AM sharp as scheduled, with snow just accumulating on the ground and I arrived in JFK ahead of my required 2 hours advance arrival time to find out that my first part of the trip would be delayed by American Airlines by more than 4 hours!

To top this, pilot announced the reason for the delay was because American Airlines personnel in JFK did not come to their work on time due to snow. is delaying their flight for 4 hours because their employees did not come to work on time? All of their passengers are at the airport and the airline staff is not at their posts. I have never heard such an excuse before in my life. This morning was not the "blizzard of 2005" in New York . It was barely any snow on the ground.

Even before leaving New York, we tried to get on the next flight, which is flight number AA 5170 scheduled to leave from San Juan to St. Maarten at 3:50 PM. American Airlines confirmed our seats in this flight. We finally arrived to San Juan before 3 PM, and guess what? They would not board us in this flight.

American Airlines representatives behind the counter have been talking about us in Spanish for the past 30 minutes, I finally could not stand any longer and told them what they were doing was not only rude but also no professional, in my fluent Puerto Rican Spanish accent.

We don't know as of right now, when we will arrive to our first destination, St. Maarten yet. I will report more live from my blackberry as soon as I find out any information.

posted Sunday, 4 December 2005 5:15 PM EST

P/V ANNALIESSE docked next to M/Y JANIE. in Antigua Charter Yacht Meeting. Additional coverage of JANIE was provided by YV&C at the 2004 Fort Lauderdale Boat Show.

Louise M. Dutton of Yacht Productions, Inc., producer of the finest yacht brochures in the industry for more than four years, with Kevyn Yearwood of Barbados Tourism Board, and Kass Johnson-Halliday of DOCK SIDE MANAGEMENT of St. Maarten and the chairperson of SCYE2004.