Chester Sam­bra­no

“The ball is in the court of Caribbean Air­lines.”

This was the word from To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine as he re­spond­ed to ques­tions on when the open­ing hours for the ANR Robin­son Air­port would be ex­tend­ed to 2 am.

Cur­rent­ly, the To­ba­go air­port clos­es at 10 pm but Au­gus­tine had ar­gued that this is hurt­ing the is­land, par­tic­u­lar­ly as it re­lates to busi­ness and tourism.

“It can­not go with­out be­ing said that there is an ab­solute need for us to have the air­bridge be­ing ser­viced prop­er­ly. I mean the de­mand is clear­ly there, the de­mand is there, we can­not get things mov­ing,” he told Guardian Me­dia.

He said this was why THA of­fi­cials met with the Air­ports Au­thor­i­ty of T&T and Caribbean Air­lines (CAL) about the trou­bling is­sue.

“I hap­pened to talk to the CEO (Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer) of CAL ear­li­er to­day (yes­ter­day) and he in­di­cat­ed that notwith­stand­ing that, they will have to do some work and plan­ning on their end,” Au­gus­tine said.

He ex­plained that the first hur­dle to over­come was the cost to keep the air­port open at the ex­tend­ed hours, which is $5.6 mil­lion a year. Au­gus­tine said he wrote to the Air­ports Au­thor­i­ty in­di­cat­ing that the THA will cov­er that cost.

How­ev­er, he said they still have to wait on a de­ci­sion from the CAL man­age­ment.

“We haven’t got­ten a firm date as to when it will open be­cause to open the air­port till 2 am, it re­quires CAL to say when they are ready to start those flights. I met with the Air­port Au­thor­i­ty head in To­ba­go, at our To­ba­go Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil meet­ing on the sec­ond Fri­day this month and she in­di­cat­ed at that meet­ing that they have put every­thing in place al­ready. They are ready, just wait­ing on the no­tice to say we start­ing from x date, so the ball is re­al­ly in the court of Caribbean Air­lines in terms of when we re­sume,” he ex­plained.

The Chief Sec­re­tary said he was cer­tain that if CAL ex­tend­ed flights as of next week, those flights would be sold out.

CAL re­sponds

Con­tact­ed for com­ment on the is­sue yes­ter­day, CAL cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions man­ag­er Dionne Ligoure said, “All I can say at this point is that Caribbean Air­lines is con­stant­ly look­ing at ca­pac­i­ty and our re­sources to ad­just air­lift as need­ed and as best as we can with the fac­tors in mind.”

Last week, it was re­vealed that all the flights to To­ba­go from Trinidad for Oc­to­ber 28 to 30, when To­ba­go Car­ni­val is sched­uled, have al­ready been sold out.

How­ev­er, the THA is hop­ing more flights can be added to the air­bridge.

The THA is al­so plan­ning to meet with the Port Au­thor­i­ty of T&T to dis­cuss whether sail­ing to the is­land can be in­creased for that pe­ri­od as well.