The To­ba­go Di­vi­sion of the Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce has voiced strong op­po­si­tion to any move to re­move the sub­sidy for the Caribbean Air­lines air­bridge be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Speak­ing on CNC3’s The Morn­ing Brew pro­gramme yes­ter­day, cham­ber pres­i­dent Cur­tis Williams said the or­gan­i­sa­tion is aware of on­go­ing dis­cus­sions aimed at im­prov­ing the air­line’s prof­itabil­i­ty, in­clud­ing the pos­si­ble re­moval of the sub­sidy. How­ev­er, he main­tained that the cham­ber does not sup­port such a move at this time.

Williams de­scribed the air­bridge as a crit­i­cal life­line, sup­port­ing tourism, busi­ness trav­el and ac­cess to es­sen­tial ser­vices. He said fre­quent trav­el be­tween the is­lands is a ne­ces­si­ty for fam­i­lies and busi­ness­es, and should be treat­ed as a pub­lic trans­porta­tion ser­vice rather than a pure­ly com­mer­cial ven­ture.

He warned that re­mov­ing the sub­sidy would place an un­fair bur­den on cit­i­zens, par­tic­u­lar­ly To­bag­o­ni­ans, who re­ly heav­i­ly on the ser­vice. Williams al­so sug­gest­ed a pos­si­ble two-tier pric­ing sys­tem, where non-res­i­dent trav­ellers pay high­er fares.

His com­ments come af­ter Caribbean Air­lines on Tues­day de­nied re­ports that there are plans to shut down the com­pa­ny. The air­line said there has been no dis­cus­sion about wind­ing up op­er­a­tions and that its board is re­view­ing op­er­a­tions and work­ing on au­dit­ed fi­nan­cial state­ments.

Williams said based on in­for­ma­tion avail­able to him, the true cost of trav­el be­tween the is­lands could rise sig­nif­i­cant­ly with­out the sub­sidy.

“The re­al cost of a flight to To­ba­go should be $500 one way. So that means a $1,000 re­turn trip,” he said.

He called for greater trans­paren­cy and con­sul­ta­tion among stake­hold­ers, in­clud­ing the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly and cen­tral gov­ern­ment, be­fore any changes are made.

“And hence the rea­son why we at the cham­ber, we al­ways ask for prop­er di­a­logue be­tween the stake­hold­ers, the THA, the cen­tral gov­ern­ment, and the oth­er play­ers with­in the in­dus­try. It’s im­por­tant that we con­tin­ue this mean­ing­ful di­a­logue. And things that don’t hap­pen one morn­ing, we wake up and we heard that the flight changed and the cost of the flight changed,” he said.

Williams al­so urged au­thor­i­ties to sep­a­rate the fi­nan­cial ac­count­ing for the do­mes­tic air­bridge from the air­line’s wider op­er­a­tions to give the pub­lic a clear­er un­der­stand­ing of costs and sub­si­dies.

“If you can dis­sect the do­mes­tic air bridge and put that ac­count­ing aside so that we, the To­bagoians, we, Trinidad and To­ba­go, could see ex­act­ly what it costs the Trinidad and To­ba­go gov­ern­ment to op­er­ate CAL be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go,” he said.