GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

Se­nior Re­porter

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

While the re­cent sus­pen­sion of Caribbean Air­lines flights to Cara­cas,Venezuela, is a no­tice­able de­vel­op­ment, it is not ex­pect­ed to sig­nif­i­cant­ly dis­rupt T&T’s wider econ­o­my.

This is the view of Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce (CCIC) Bal­dath Ma­haraj, who says the im­pact on busi­ness would be min­i­mal due to the lim­it­ed trade that ex­ists di­rect­ly be­tween the two coun­tries.

Ma­haraj told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day that al­ter­na­tive routes are still avail­able via Pana­ma, adding that the de­ci­sion must be seen with­in the wider con­text of geopo­lit­i­cal ten­sions be­tween the Unit­ed States and Venezuela and the risks such con­di­tions pose to busi­ness­es.

“With the on­go­ing strain in re­la­tions be­tween Venezuela and the Unit­ed States, there is no cer­tain­ty how cir­cum­stances may un­fold. Pas­sen­gers face the very re­al risk of be­ing strand­ed in Cara­cas should sit­u­a­tions change overnight. Added to this is the re­al­i­ty that the gov­ern­ment of Venezuela has al­ready sig­nalled po­si­tions that are not par­tic­u­lar­ly favourable to­ward Trinidad and To­ba­go, which fur­ther in­creas­es un­cer­tain­ty,” he ex­plained.

Ma­haraj not­ed that in these cir­cum­stances, the sus­pen­sion of flights is a re­spon­si­ble and nec­es­sary pre­cau­tion.

He ad­vised, how­ev­er, that the air­line must con­tin­ue to close­ly mon­i­tor the sit­u­a­tion be­fore giv­ing any con­sid­er­a­tion to the re­sump­tion of ser­vices.

He said pro­tect­ing pas­sen­gers and avoid­ing un­nec­es­sary ex­po­sure to risk must re­main the pri­or­i­ty, as he em­pha­sised ex­po­sure to risk must re­main the top pri­or­i­ty, giv­en the on­go­ing geopo­lit­i­cal un­cer­tain­ty in the re­gion.

In this vein, he urged both the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty and the pub­lic to re­main vig­i­lant and cau­tious in their en­gage­ments in­volv­ing Venezuela at this time.

Last week, Caribbean Air­lines an­nounced the tem­po­rary sus­pen­sion of all flights be­tween Trinidad and Cara­cas for the month of Sep­tem­ber. The af­fect­ed ser­vices in­clude flights BW 300 and BW 301 on Sep­tem­ber 6, 13, 20 and 27.

CAL ex­plained the de­ci­sion came against the back­drop of height­ened ten­sions be­tween T&T and Venezuela, fol­low­ing a US mil­i­tary strike on Sep­tem­ber 1 in the south­ern Caribbean.

Caribbean Air­lines re­sumed fly­ing to Cara­cas on May 13, 2023, sev­er­al years af­ter the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic shut­tered air­line routes across the world.