The ar­rival of two Russ­ian car­go air­planes at Pi­ar­co over the last month is in keep­ing with cus­tom­ary pro­ce­dures, ac­cord­ing to the Air­ports Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go (AATT).

Guardian Me­dia re­port­ed on Sat­ur­day that the Russ­ian-man­u­fac­tured Ilyushin plane, which ar­rived on Thurs­day and the oth­er owned by Vol­ga-Dnepr Car­go Air­lines which has been here for al­most a month had raised con­cerns among var­i­ous im­mi­gra­tion and air­port of­fi­cials.

On Sat­ur­day, AATT cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions man­ag­er Zo­la Joseph said: “Air­ports Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go wish­es to ad­vise that tech­ni­cal stops were re­quest­ed for two Ilyushin car­go air­craft at the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port, which were fa­cil­i­tat­ed by the ap­pro­pri­ate reg­u­la­to­ry au­thor­i­ties. It is cus­tom­ary at all air­ports, for in­ter­na­tion­al car­go air­craft to make such stops.”

The AATT added: “It is im­por­tant to note that tech­ni­cal stops for rea­sons in­clu­sive of rest, re­fu­elling, re­pair or crew change have tak­en place for years by car­go air­craft at this coun­try’s air­ports. Trinidad’s ge­o­graph­ic lo­ca­tion, the length of the run­way at the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port and the routes served by some car­go com­pa­nies make Pi­ar­co an im­por­tant strate­gic point. Park­ing and land­ing of car­go air­freight are a part of the rev­enue earn­ing busi­ness of the Au­thor­i­ty.”

In re­sponse to a ques­tion about whether the planes were here be­cause of the eco­nom­ic cri­sis in neigh­bour­ing Venezuela, the AATT said: “We do not have any in­for­ma­tion that there is any re­la­tion to the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion in Venezuela.”

In a con­fi­den­tial im­mi­gra­tion doc­u­ment ob­tained ex­clu­sive­ly by Guardian Me­dia, the eight crew mem­bers of the Vol­ga-Dnepr Car­go Air­lines said they had dropped off car­go in French Guiana and ar­rived two days lat­er in Trinidad.

They told im­mi­gra­tion au­thor­i­ties that they re­quest­ed a fu­el stop and crew rest in Trinidad.

One of the pi­lots Mikhail Mini­akov told au­thor­i­ties “af­ter drop­ping off the car­go which they had picked up in Italy, they trans­port­ed con­tain­ers to French Guiana but could give no in­for­ma­tion as to what they con­tain­ers con­tained.”