Brent Pin­heiro

To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine is push­ing back against sug­ges­tions that Caribbean Air­lines (CAL) should be shut­down or sold, ar­gu­ing that the air­line’s eco­nom­ic val­ue to the coun­try far out­weighs its fi­nan­cial chal­lenges.

“For us, CAL is a pub­lic trans­porta­tion ser­vice and the eco­nom­ic ben­e­fits far out­weighs bal­anc­ing the fi­nances,” Au­gus­tine said.

His com­ments come af­ter an ex­clu­sive Sun­day Guardian re­port re­vealed there is a di­vi­sion of opin­ion on the air­line’s board about its vi­a­bil­i­ty, with chair­man Rey­na Kow­lessar ad­vo­cat­ing for fur­ther State sup­port while at least two di­rec­tors favour clo­sure or sale. There is al­so a rec­om­men­da­tion for the re­moval of the air­bridge sub­sidy and cut­ting on un­prof­itable routes.

Au­gus­tine said the fo­cus should in­stead be on ex­pand­ing the air­line’s role in dri­ving tourism and con­nec­tiv­i­ty, point­ing to Co­pa Air­lines’ mod­el.

“What needs to hap­pen is that CAL should be to Trinidad and To­ba­go what CO­PA is to Pana­ma. We should be sub­si­dis­ing CAL in­to mak­ing our two ma­jor air­ports a se­ri­ous hub be­tween the Caribbean and the rest of the world, con­nect­ing new tourism source mar­kets to the coun­try,” he said.

He al­so ques­tioned the coun­try’s abil­i­ty to con­vert in­fra­struc­ture in­to vis­i­tor ar­rivals.

“Don’t you find it strange that we now have two ter­mi­nals (the new ANR In­ter­na­tion­al in­clud­ed), that is sig­nif­i­cant­ly larg­er than the av­er­age ter­mi­nal in the Caribbean, yet we bring sig­nif­i­cant­ly less in­ter­na­tion­al vis­i­tors than these small­er ter­mi­nals?” he asked.

“I don’t wish to rant, but as a coun­try we have his­tor­i­cal­ly been un­se­ri­ous about tourism and the eco­nom­ic po­ten­tials of the trav­el in­dus­try.”

The Avi­a­tion Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Al­lied Work­ers Union (ACAWU) al­so weighed in yes­ter­day, call­ing for ur­gent dis­cus­sions with CAL’s lead­er­ship amid re­ports of pos­si­ble ad­di­tion­al State sup­port. It al­so warned against re­peat­ing past de­ci­sions with­out pub­lic con­sen­sus, say­ing, “Not an­oth­er Petrotrin.”

The union said it recog­nis­es the pres­sures fac­ing the air­line, in­clud­ing volatile fu­el costs and the need for a sus­tain­able busi­ness mod­el, while com­mend­ing the Gov­ern­ment, board and man­age­ment for treat­ing the is­sue se­ri­ous­ly.

De­scrib­ing the air­line as crit­i­cal in­fra­struc­ture, the union said, “Caribbean Air­lines is more than a com­pa­ny; it is a vi­tal link for Trinidad and To­ba­go and the wider re­gion; it is as es­sen­tial as the road­ways.”

ACAWU rep­re­sents about 70 per cent of the air­line’s work­force but is not the of­fi­cial­ly recog­nised ma­jor­i­ty union ac­cord­ing to CAL. How­ev­er, the group said it is seek­ing trans­paren­cy, mean­ing­ful en­gage­ment and a sus­tain­able plan that pro­tects jobs while se­cur­ing the air­line’s fu­ture.

“The de­ci­sions made in the com­ing weeks will shape the coun­try’s fu­ture for decades to come… We can­not af­ford to make an­oth­er ir­re­versible de­ci­sion with­out na­tion­al con­sen­sus.”

CAL, mean­while, sought to calm spec­u­la­tion, in­sist­ing there are no plans to shut down the car­ri­er.

“The air­line’s board of di­rec­tors cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly re­jects any ru­mours sug­gest­ing that Caribbean Air­lines is fac­ing clo­sure. There has been no dis­cus­sion re­gard­ing the clo­sure of the air­line.”

How­ev­er, the com­pa­ny said it is ac­tive­ly re­view­ing its busi­ness to im­prove sta­bil­i­ty and sus­tain­abil­i­ty.

“These ef­forts are fo­cused on en­sur­ing the de­liv­ery of re­li­able ser­vice and main­tain­ing strong con­nec­tiv­i­ty across the air­line’s net­work.”

It said work on au­dit­ed fi­nan­cial state­ments is un­der­way, and re­cruit­ment for key se­nior man­age­ment po­si­tions is pro­gress­ing to strength­en lead­er­ship and long-term strat­e­gy.

CAL con­tin­ues to face ris­ing jet fu­el prices amidst the US/Is­rael war in Iran. It is al­so bat­tling un­prof­itable routes, in­clud­ing the do­mes­tic air­bridge.