GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

Se­nior Re­porter

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

T&T is set to get a sig­nif­i­cant boost in its tourism and eco­nom­ic sec­tors fol­low­ing news that two new air­lines are due to start fly­ing to T&T in the near fu­ture.

Word of the new air­lines came from Min­is­ter of Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts Ran­dall Mitchell, speak­ing from Lon­don, where he is at­tend­ing the World Trav­el Mar­ket.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Mitchell said dis­cus­sions have been fruit­ful with the two air­lines and this will lead to pos­i­tive ben­e­fits for the coun­try.

“We al­so met with In­ter­Caribbean who have in­di­cat­ed that they have ap­plied for ap­provals from the Civ­il Avi­a­tion Au­thor­i­ty in Trinidad To­ba­go and are await­ing equip­ment as they have air­planes on or­der be­fore they be­gin flights to and from Trinidad and To­ba­go. We have al­so met with Vir­gin At­lantic to ex­press our in­ter­est in start­ing a di­rect flight from Lon­don Heathrow to Port-of-Spain in the not-too-dis­tant fu­ture,” Mitchell ex­plained.

In­ter­Caribbean Air­ways Ltd is a re­gion­al air­line based in the Turks and Caicos Is­lands, a British over­seas ter­ri­to­ry.

Last Au­gust, in an in­ter­view with Busi­ness Guardian, the air­line’s founder and chair­man, Lyn­don Gar­diner, said it is fi­nan­cial­ly sta­ble and here to stay. 

Mitchell al­so gave an up­date on Air Cana­da’s plans to re­sume flights to this coun­try be­gin­ning May 2025.

“Air Cana­da will re­sume with a four-times week­ly sched­ule and it will be year round. These de­vel­op­ments in air­lift cre­ate pos­i­tive im­pacts in sev­er­al key ar­eas in trav­el and tourism,” he said.

In Au­gust 2023, Air Cana­da axed plans to op­er­ate flights to Trinidad, cit­ing crew short­ages.

Now, just over a year lat­er, the Mon­tre­al-based car­ri­er is an­nounc­ing plans to re­sume flights be­tween Toron­to and Port-of-Spain come May 1, 2025.

The Min­istry of Tourism said Air Cana­da’s an­nounce­ment is a “sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone” for T&T in sev­er­al key ar­eas in­clud­ing “tourism growth and in­creased vis­i­tors, eas­i­er trav­el for busi­ness and trade, and cul­tur­al ex­change.

Re­gard­ing To­ba­go, Sec­re­tary of Tourism, Cul­ture, An­tiq­ui­ties and Trans­porta­tion Tashia Bur­ris said not on­ly were valu­able in­sights shared at the event but al­so more pos­si­ble di­rect air­lift to that is­land. “When we look at the num­ber of per­sons com­ing in on BA (British Air­ways) we are so far, 15 per cent ahead in for­ward book­ings for next cal­en­dar year and we’ve al­ready had a 13 per cent in­crease in terms of the amount of per­sons who trav­elled on BA in 2023 ver­sus 2022. For us, that con­tin­ues to show that BA is do­ing bet­ter num­bers when it comes to sell­ing To­ba­go,” she said dur­ing an in­ter­view on a tele­vi­sion pro­gramme yes­ter­day.

World Trav­el Mar­ket Lon­don is home to the world’s trav­el trade and the an­nu­al event bring­ing to­geth­er the in­ter­na­tion­al leisure trav­el com­mu­ni­ty; pro­vid­ing in­spi­ra­tion, ed­u­ca­tion, sourc­ing, and bench­mark­ing to trav­el pro­fes­sion­als while pro­vid­ing ex­hibitors a place to do busi­ness and show­case their ser­vices.