Joel Julien

Is an al­ter­na­tive means of trans­port on the To­ba­go air­bridge over the hori­zon?

Well, if Ray­mond McMil­lan has his way then the an­swer is yes.

A trip to To­ba­go may cost twice as much as you pay now though.

McMil­lan is the chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of Ster­ling To­ba­go Air­ways Lim­it­ed, trad­ing as To­ba­go Air­ways, and he be­lieves the na­tion­al car­ri­er Caribbean Air­lines need­ed com­pe­ti­tion on the do­mes­tic air­bridge.

McMil­lan is cur­rent­ly look­ing for in­vestors to help fund this idea.

For in­vest­ments of US$100,000 and over re­turns on in­vest­ment are ne­go­ti­at­ed on a case-by-case ba­sis.

McMil­lan be­lieves To­ba­go Air­ways’ es­ti­mat­ed prof­it af­ter five years will be around US$19.5 mil­lion.

The ini­tial con­tract for a plane will be with Air­line So­lu­tions Ltd, a com­pa­ny reg­is­tered in the UK.

So­cial me­dia was abuzz yes­ter­day when the front page of the To­ba­go Air­ways doc­u­ment seek­ing in­vestors was shared.

“Some­thing new and ex­cit­ing is com­ing soon,” the doc­u­ment stat­ed.

The T&T Guardian reached out to McMil­lan for in­for­ma­tion on the ven­ture but he said he was hav­ing a board meet­ing at the Mag­dale­na Grand Beach & Golf Re­sort.

Ac­cord­ing to the To­ba­go Air­ways web­site “some­thing new and ex­cit­ing” is com­ing by March 1.

McMil­lan is look­ing for in­vestors for what he deems a “nec­es­sary ‘shift’ in the air­bridge be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go which has been a ‘sour point’ for over 30 years”.

In re­cent times is­sues sur­round­ing the To­ba­go air­bridge have come to the na­tion­al fore, es­pe­cial­ly in light of dif­fi­cul­ties ex­pe­ri­enced on the seabridge.

CAL re­cent­ly is­sued a re­lease show­ing that its per­for­mance on the To­ba­go air­bridge has been 86 per cent above in­dus­try stan­dards. The na­tion­al air­line al­so im­ple­ment­ed a $50 change fee for pas­sen­gers miss­ing or chang­ing their con­firmed flights.

Ac­cord­ing to a re­cent Par­lia­ment Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee, 52 per cent of CAL’s flights are op­er­at­ed on the do­mes­tic air­bridge and ap­prox­i­mate­ly TT$41 mil­lion was al­lo­cat­ed for CAL as the sub­sidy on the air­bridge for 2017.

The sub­sidy does not cov­er the en­tire short­fall be­tween the fare charged for flights along the air­bridge, and the cost of run­ning the air bridge, and there­fore, the route is un­prof­itable. Re­turn tick­ets on CAL for the To­ba­go air-bridge cost $300. To­ba­go Air­ways tick­ets are ex­pect­ed to cost around $600.