This is not just a pro­posed price in­crease; this is a bar­ri­er be­tween two parts of the same coun­try.

The Trinidad to To­ba­go air­bridge is es­sen­tial in­fra­struc­ture, not a lux­u­ry route. When cit­i­zens are be­ing asked to pay close to $1,000 to trav­el with­in their own na­tion, some­thing is fun­da­men­tal­ly wrong. At that point, mo­bil­i­ty be­comes a priv­i­lege rather than a ba­sic na­tion­al ne­ces­si­ty.

While it is un­der­stood that the state car­ri­er, Caribbean Air­lines, faces re­al fi­nan­cial pres­sure from fu­el costs and op­er­a­tional loss­es, the cur­rent struc­ture of the air­bridge is not sus­tain­able for the pub­lic. A sin­gle dom­i­nant provider with lim­it­ed com­pe­ti­tion will al­ways push prices up­ward when sub­si­dies are re­duced.

This is where pol­i­cy must shift from com­plaint to so­lu­tion.

In­stead of re­ly­ing en­tire­ly on one na­tion­al car­ri­er, se­ri­ous con­sid­er­a­tion should be giv­en to open­ing the air­bridge and re­gion­al routes to struc­tured com­pe­ti­tion.

More im­por­tant­ly, the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly should be em­pow­ered to take a more ac­tive role in re­gion­al air con­nec­tiv­i­ty—not nec­es­sar­i­ly by cre­at­ing a full-scale na­tion­al air­line overnight, but by de­vel­op­ing or part­ner­ing in a To­ba­go-based re­gion­al air ser­vice mod­el.

Such a mod­el could op­er­ate:

• Trinidad to To­ba­go high-fre­quen­cy do­mes­tic flights un­der reg­u­lat­ed fares

• Re­gion­al routes link­ing To­ba­go to near­by Caribbean is­lands

• Pub­lic–pri­vate part­ner­ships to re­duce fi­nan­cial risk

• Tar­get­ed gov­ern­ment sup­port for es­sen­tial trav­el cat­e­gories such as res­i­dents, stu­dents, and med­ical pa­tients

This is not about re­plac­ing Caribbean Air­lines en­tire­ly, but about break­ing de­pen­den­cy on a sin­gle point of fail­ure. Com­pe­ti­tion and di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion in avi­a­tion ser­vices would im­prove pric­ing, re­li­a­bil­i­ty, and long-term re­silience.

A twin-is­land re­pub­lic can­not func­tion prop­er­ly if its in­ter­nal con­nec­tion is priced like an in­ter­na­tion­al lux­u­ry route. To­ba­go is not a tourist add-on to Trinidad; it is a co-equal part of the na­tion.

If we are se­ri­ous about na­tion­al uni­ty, then we must be se­ri­ous about ac­cess. And if that means To­ba­go de­vel­ops its own struc­tured re­gion­al air ca­pa­bil­i­ty, then that con­ver­sa­tion is long over­due.

Tony mark Ram­je­w­an

Port-of-Spain