Bar­ba­dos is deep­en­ing dis­cus­sions with Caribbean Air­lines (CAL) over route de­vel­op­ment and re­gion­al con­nec­tiv­i­ty at a time when the ma­jor­i­ty Trinidad and To­ba­go-owned car­ri­er re­mains un­der pres­sure over prof­itabil­i­ty, op­er­a­tional per­for­mance, and its long-de­layed au­dit­ed fi­nan­cial state­ments.

Speak­ing with Busi­ness Guardian dur­ing the re­cent­ly con­clud­ed Caribbean Trav­el Mar­ket­place 2026 in An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, Bar­ba­dos Min­is­ter of Tourism and In­ter­na­tion­al Trans­port Ian Good­ing-Edghill con­firmed that dis­cus­sions with the air­line are con­tin­u­ing as Bar­ba­dos ag­gres­sive­ly ex­pands its tourism and air­lift strat­e­gy.

The com­ments come months af­ter cur­rent Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar pub­licly warned CAL man­age­ment to “sort out the mess” or face dis­missal, rais­ing con­cerns over un­prof­itable routes, out­stand­ing au­dit­ed fi­nan­cial state­ments, and mil­lions spent on ex­ter­nal au­dits de­spite the air­line main­tain­ing a large fi­nance de­part­ment.

Talks con­tin­ue

Good­ing-Edghill dis­tanced Bar­ba­dos from the air­line’s in­ter­nal fi­nan­cial is­sues but con­firmed on­go­ing en­gage­ment fo­cused on route ex­pan­sion and re­gion­al con­nec­tiv­i­ty.

“I can’t speak to cost prof­itabil­i­ty. That’s an in­ter­nal mat­ter. But what I can tell you is that we have been hav­ing on­go­ing dis­cus­sions re­gard­ing routes and de­vel­op­ment. That dis­cus­sion is cur­rent­ly on­go­ing, and we look for­ward to those con­tin­ued dis­cus­sions,” he not­ed.

The Bar­ba­dos tourism min­is­ter point­ed to what he de­scribed as sig­nif­i­cant op­por­tu­ni­ties for CAL to strength­en re­gion­al trav­el links and sup­port tourism growth through­out the Caribbean.

“We are well aware that there are huge op­por­tu­ni­ties, and I be­lieve there are great op­por­tu­ni­ties for the Caribbean to help Bar­ba­dos in terms of route struc­ture. And that is cur­rent­ly un­der dis­cus­sion,” the min­is­ter out­lined.

He stopped short of de­tail­ing any pro­posed routes or com­mer­cial arrange­ments, not­ing dis­cus­sions re­main on­go­ing.

“Once we’ve con­clud­ed dis­cus­sions, you’ll be no­ti­fied. But it is too ear­ly to make any fur­ther an­nounce­ment re­gard­ing that. Suf­fice to say that CAL plays a crit­i­cal role, not on­ly in the Caribbean, but al­so in dri­ving in­ter­na­tion­al traf­fic to des­ti­na­tions with­in the Caribbean.”

Bar­ba­dos ex­pands air­lift

The talks come as Caribbean gov­ern­ments con­tin­ue to grap­ple with one of the re­gion’s most per­sis­tent eco­nom­ic chal­lenges: in­tra-re­gion­al con­nec­tiv­i­ty. High tick­et prices, in­con­sis­tent sched­ul­ing, and lim­it­ed air­lift have long been iden­ti­fied as ma­jor bar­ri­ers to tourism growth and re­gion­al trade.

For Bar­ba­dos, ex­pand­ing air­lift re­mains cen­tral to its tourism growth mod­el, with a con­tin­ued push to strength­en ca­pac­i­ty from key source mar­kets.

Good­ing-Edghill said Bar­ba­dos con­tin­ues to ben­e­fit from steady trav­el de­mand from T&T, par­tic­u­lar­ly dur­ing ma­jor events and fes­ti­vals.

“I don’t have the ex­act num­bers be­fore me, but what I can tell you is we are see­ing a num­ber of Trinida­di­ans who come to Bar­ba­dos not on­ly for car­ni­val, but they al­so come to Bar­ba­dos on busi­ness and al­so for leisure.”

He said events tourism con­tin­ues to dri­ve re­gion­al trav­el, es­pe­cial­ly dur­ing Crop Over and oth­er ma­jor cul­tur­al and busi­ness events.

“We re­al­ly ap­pre­ci­ate the fact that Trinida­di­ans come to Bar­ba­dos for leisure, es­pe­cial­ly when there’s Crop Over and when there are oth­er events hap­pen­ing in Bar­ba­dos,” Good­ing-Edghill high­light­ed

New mar­kets in fo­cus

Bar­ba­dos is now in­ten­si­fy­ing ef­forts to grow con­fer­ence tourism and di­ver­si­fy vis­i­tor ar­rivals as part of its broad­er tourism strat­e­gy.

“As we con­tin­ue to fill out our events cal­en­dar, as we con­tin­ue to have more con­fer­ences on the is­land, and as we con­tin­ue to build Bar­ba­dos as a very good leisure hol­i­day des­ti­na­tion spot, we will see more Trinida­di­ans.”

The min­is­ter high­light­ed re­gion­al mar­ket­ing ef­forts tar­get­ing Caribbean source mar­kets, in­clud­ing T&T.

“We have a di­rec­tor with­in the De­part­ment of Tourism who is re­spon­si­ble for the Caribbean. He and his team do a tremen­dous amount of work in Trinidad and all oth­er Caribbean is­lands to re­cruit vis­i­tors from Trinidad and those oth­er Caribbean is­lands.”

Bar­ba­dos is al­so close­ly mon­i­tor­ing glob­al fu­el price move­ments and their im­pact on air­line costs and trav­el de­mand, al­though book­ing trends re­main sta­ble.

Good­ing-Edghill said there has been no ma­jor shift in de­mand pat­terns.

“Let me be­gin by say­ing, first of all, that we are cur­rent­ly re­view­ing all of our book­ing in­for­ma­tion. We mon­i­tor book­ings in­to des­ti­na­tion

Bar­ba­dos on a dai­ly ba­sis.” He said fore­cast­ing tools show no cause for con­cern at this stage.

“We have a fore­cast­ing tool that we use. That fore­cast­ing tool has con­firmed that we have not seen any ma­jor or sig­nif­i­cant shifts in book­ing trends, and cer­tain­ly any­thing that will give us cause for con­cern.”

While air­lines have ad­just­ed bag­gage fees and fu­el strate­gies, Bar­ba­dos says the sit­u­a­tion re­mains man­age­able.

“With re­spect to the in­crease in fu­el prices, it is a dy­nam­ic. We recog­nise that air­lines have made some ad­just­ments to bag­gage fees. Some have ob­vi­ous­ly been mon­i­tor­ing the sit­u­a­tion based on how they pur­chase fu­el,” the min­is­ter men­tioned.

“But at this point in time, it is not a sig­nif­i­cant con­cern for a des­ti­na­tion such as Bar­ba­dos. But we will con­tin­ue to mon­i­tor it.”

Bar­ba­dos’ tourism strat­e­gy is in­creas­ing­ly fo­cused on air­lift ex­pan­sion and mar­ket di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion as com­pe­ti­tion across the re­gion in­ten­si­fies.

Good­ing-Edghill said con­nec­tiv­i­ty re­mains the core dri­ver of growth.

“To achieve growth, we have to main­tain a very ro­bust pol­i­cy with re­spect to air­lift. And that is what we are do­ing, con­cen­trat­ing and dri­ving more air­lift to the des­ti­na­tion.

“If you want growth, the on­ly way you ac­com­plish growth is through in­creased con­nec­tiv­i­ty. And that’s why the air­lift strat­e­gy that we ex­e­cut­ed three years ago con­tin­ues to pay sig­nif­i­cant div­i­dends for Bar­ba­dos.”

The is­land is tar­get­ing new and emerg­ing mar­kets, in­clud­ing the Gulf states, Asia-Pa­cif­ic, and Latin Amer­i­ca.

“We are very fo­cused on the African Gulf States. We are go­ing in­to the Asia-Pa­cif­ic mar­ket and hop­ing that fur­ther moves will be made with re­spect to the open­ing of that of­fice as well. And we will con­tin­ue to build up the Latin Amer­i­can mar­ket.”

Bar­ba­dos is al­so see­ing ad­di­tion­al sup­port from ma­jor in­ter­na­tion­al car­ri­ers.

Good­ing-Edghill dis­closed British Air­ways will op­er­ate a larg­er air­craft on its Bar­ba­dos route dur­ing the sum­mer, while Vir­gin At­lantic has up­grad­ed its Bar­ba­dos–Lon­don ser­vice with its newest air­craft.

“British Air­ways is al­so putting on a big­ger air­craft com­ing to Bar­ba­dos for two months in the sum­mer. So that is great news for us this sum­mer. And of course, Vir­gin At­lantic has added its newest air­craft on the Bar­ba­dos-Lon­don route. So we be­lieve that there are great op­por­tu­ni­ties for us to be had,” he ex­plained.

Bar­ba­dos has al­so been con­firmed as host of the 45th edi­tion of Caribbean Trav­el Mar­ket­place 2027 in May next year, fur­ther strength­en­ing its po­si­tion in re­gion­al tourism lead­er­ship.

Good­ing-Edghill de­scribed the se­lec­tion as a ma­jor en­dorse­ment of Bar­ba­dos’ tourism in­dus­try, in­fra­struc­ture and long-term tourism strat­e­gy.

He said the event would bring to­geth­er in­ter­na­tion­al buy­ers, tour op­er­a­tors, air­lines, hote­liers, and tourism ex­ec­u­tives from key source mar­kets around the world.

Good­ing-Edghill in­di­cat­ed Bar­ba­dos planned to use the event to show­case its cul­ture, hos­pi­tal­i­ty, and tourism prod­uct while cre­at­ing new op­por­tu­ni­ties for busi­ness growth and re­gion­al part­ner­ships.

The min­is­ter added that host­ing the mar­ket­place would al­so pro­vide a sig­nif­i­cant eco­nom­ic boost for busi­ness­es linked to the tourism sec­tor and strength­en Bar­ba­dos’ in­ter­na­tion­al vis­i­bil­i­ty.