CHESTER SAM­BRA­NO

The Min­istry of Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts says it is thrilled at the launch of British Air­ways' new di­rect flight ser­vice from Gatwick to Port of Spain, which start­ed on March 26.

In a me­dia re­lease the Min­istry said:

"The new ser­vice is ex­pect­ed to pro­vide a sig­nif­i­cant boost to the coun­try's tourism in­dus­try and strength­en the eco­nom­ic ties be­tween the Unit­ed King­dom and Trinidad and To­ba­go."

The new non­stop BA flight ser­vice will op­er­ate from Lon­don Gatwick (LGW) to Port of Spain (POS) on Sun­days, Tues­days, and Thurs­days, week­ly.

The last time Port of Spain was linked di­rect­ly to Lon­don was in 2016, when Caribbean Air­lines of­fered non­stop flights to Gatwick.

"This new ser­vice is ex­pect­ed to en­hance our des­ti­na­tion's ap­peal to trav­ellers from the Unit­ed King­dom, by giv­ing them ac­cess to be able to en­joy the vi­brant cul­ture, scenic beau­ty, and warm hos­pi­tal­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go with ease," the Min­istry said.

"We are de­light­ed to wel­come the new BA di­rect ser­vice to Port of Spain. The Unit­ed King­dom is a sig­nif­i­cant mar­ket for us, and we be­lieve this new ser­vice will pro­vide a sub­stan­tial boost to our tourism in­dus­try,” said Ran­dall Mitchell, Min­is­ter of Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts. “We look for­ward to wel­com­ing more British trav­ellers and even re­turn­ing na­tion­als to our beau­ti­ful is­lands and show­cas­ing all that Trinidad and To­ba­go has to of­fer."

Ac­cord­ing to Min­is­ter Mitchell, with the ease of di­rect trav­el, busi­ness and oth­er trav­ellers will have more time to fo­cus on their work and/or leisure and build stronger re­la­tion­ships with their coun­ter­parts.

“This new ser­vice al­so shows the lev­el of con­fi­dence that British Air­ways has in the Port-of- Spain route,” Min­is­ter Mitchell said.

He added: “With the es­ti­mat­ed size of BA air­craft ser­vic­ing this route hav­ing an av­er­age ca­pac­i­ty of ap­prox­i­mate­ly 312—de­pen­dant on the air­line’s con­fig­u­ra­tion—Trinidad can now see its in­bound mar­ket in­crease by at least 1,000 pas­sen­gers week­ly from this re­gion alone.”