Trans­port Min­is­ter De­vant Ma­haraj has said all arrange­ments are be­ing made for the start of two week­ly Caribbean Air­lines flights to Lon­don. He spoke in re­sponse to claims in the Sen­ate yes­ter­day by Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Lester Hen­ry the air­line's re­quest to fly the Lon­don route had been dis­ap­proved.

Speak­ing dur­ing de­bate on a bill to in­crease the 2012 na­tion­al bud­get by $1.5 bil­lion, Hen­ry said CAL was in a calami­tous state be­cause of the mis­man­age­ment of the air­line by the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment. He al­so said T&T was in a pro­longed re­ces­sion. He said Fi­nance Min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an did not seem to have a clue on how to take T&T out of the present eco­nom­ic sit­u­a­tion.

He said there were some signs of eco­nom­ic re­cov­ery in ear­ly 2011 but the Gov­ern­ment im­posed s state of emer­gency which had a neg­a­tive im­pact on the econ­o­my. "Just when you thought it was safe, they called an ill-ad­vised, al­most in­sane state of emer­gency and killed off any prospect of eco­nom­ic growth," Hen­ry added.