An air ser­vices agree­ment be­tween Caribbean Air­lines (CAL) and Qatar Air­ways is im­mi­nent ac­cord­ing to a state­ment is­sued by CAL yes­ter­day.

The an­nounce­ment fol­lows talks that were held be­tween Chair­man of CAL, Ron­nie Mo­hammed and of­fi­cials from Qatar Air­ways, in­clud­ing Esmir Gan­ic, Head of Aeropo­lit­i­cal and Cor­po­rate Af­fairs, Pablo Gon­za­lez Zamo­ra, Al­liance and Part­ner­ship, Haresh Sun­der­ji Nan­da, Man­ag­er Cor­po­rate Plan­ning and Dwayne Bri­an, Se­nior Man­ag­er Aeropo­lit­i­cal and Reg­u­la­to­ry Af­fairs.

Mo­hammed was a mem­ber of Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s del­e­ga­tion to Qatar that par­tic­i­pat­ed in the Sixth Sum­mit of Heads of State and Gov­ern­ment of the Gas Ex­port­ing Coun­tries Fo­rum (GECF).

Ac­cord­ing to Caribbean Air­lines, the meet­ing ex­plored prospects for deep­en­ing the re­la­tion­ship be­tween the two car­ri­ers, es­pe­cial­ly in the ar­eas of pas­sen­ger and car­go op­er­a­tions.

“The meet­ings held were pro­duc­tive, and the im­pend­ing sign­ing of an air ser­vices agree­ment will en­hance the mu­tu­al in­ter­ests of T&T and Qatar...It in­creas­es the po­ten­tial for Caribbean Air­lines to ex­pand its con­nec­tiv­i­ty, of­fer greater choice to its cus­tomers and in­crease trade and car­go move­ment for T&T and the re­gion,” Mo­hammed ex­plained.

He added that Qatar Air­ways serves all six con­ti­nents, and is the world’s fastest-grow­ing air­line, con­nect­ing more than 140 des­ti­na­tions glob­al­ly.

Fur­ther, Mo­hammed said Caribbean Air­lines has a man­date to im­prove con­nec­tiv­i­ty with­in and out­side the re­gion, adding that these talks with Qatar Air­ways are “well aligned” with Caribbean Air­lines’ theme of re­set­ting ex­pec­ta­tions for 2022.

“As part of its strate­gic plan, Caribbean Air­lines has a re­newed fo­cus on al­liances, to en­able bet­ter con­nec­tiv­i­ty for its cus­tomers.

“The air­line en­joys the largest net­work in the re­gion, which it con­tin­ues to ex­pand. It al­so holds in­ter­line agree­ments and has on­line in­ter­line book­ing ca­pa­bil­i­ty with sev­er­al air­line part­ners,” CAL added.