Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Caribbean Air­lines (CAL) has re­port­ed that near­ly 5,000 of the 14,000 seats al­lo­cat­ed for the To­ba­go Car­ni­val were un­oc­cu­pied.

For the Oc­to­ber 26-30 pe­ri­od, the air­line op­er­at­ed 184 re­turn flights, pro­vid­ing 14,288 seats on the do­mes­tic air­bridge.

In a re­lease yes­ter­day, CAL said of the 7,144 seat­ing ca­pac­i­ty pro­vid­ed from Trinidad to To­ba­go on 92 flights, 4,892 were used and 2,252 were un­used. For pas­sen­gers trav­el­ling from To­ba­go to Trinidad for the same pe­ri­od, 4,503 seats were used, while 2,641 were emp­ty.

In all, there were a com­bined 4,893 un­used seats on ei­ther side of the air­bridge.

There were 7,144 seats avail­able from Trinidad and an­oth­er 7,144 from To­ba­go, with 2,252 re­main­ing emp­ty from 92 flights from Trinidad to To­ba­go and 2,641 seats un­oc­cu­pied from 92 flights from To­ba­go.

CAL CEO Garvin Med­era em­pha­sised the im­por­tance of the do­mes­tic air­bridge, stat­ing that it holds a sig­nif­i­cant role in the air­line’s op­er­a­tions and re­ceives top pri­or­i­ty

“Cus­tomers have ex­pressed their plea­sure with our per­for­mance over the re­cent­ly con­clud­ed To­ba­go Oc­to­ber Car­ni­val week­end. Ex­tra flights were sched­uled, and our op­er­a­tions and air­port teams fo­cused heav­i­ly on care­ful man­age­ment and ser­vice de­liv­ery,” he said.

Med­era said pas­sen­gers with con­firmed book­ings were ac­com­mo­dat­ed on sched­uled flights and CAL’s on-time per­for­mance for the week­end sur­passed the glob­al avi­a­tion in­dus­try stan­dard, reach­ing over 87 per cent.

To meet the de­mand, ex­tra flights were sched­uled, and CAL’s op­er­a­tions and air­port teams fo­cused on ef­fi­cient man­age­ment and high-qual­i­ty ser­vice.

Med­era added: “The air­line con­tin­ues to close­ly man­age the air­bridge and re­mains com­mit­ted to pro­vid­ing con­sis­tent and re­li­able ser­vice through­out its net­work.”

In 2022 for the in­au­gur­al To­ba­go Car­ni­val, CAL pro­vid­ed 20,200 ad­di­tion­al seats. CAL record­ed that 14,426 pas­sen­gers trav­elled on 279 flights. In to­tal, 5,774 seats were left emp­ty.