The To­ba­go Di­vi­sion of the T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce has made a pub­lic ap­peal to Caribbean Air­lines Ltd (CAL) pi­lots to avoid in­dus­tri­al ac­tion this week­end dur­ing To­ba­go Car­ni­val, which is ex­pect­ed to be the is­land’s biggest eco­nom­ic sea­son in years.

Last month, off-du­ty pi­lots staged a protest at Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port over out­stand­ing wages and in­cre­ments.

At a me­dia con­fer­ence yes­ter­day in Scar­bor­ough, the cham­ber’s vice pres­i­dent De­mi-John Cruick­shank said while he un­der­stands the rea­sons be­hind the pi­lots’ re­cent protests, he wants them to put any in­dus­tri­al ac­tion on the back burn­er.

“I know you have your in­dus­tri­al is­sues but I’m beg­ging you, from a To­ba­go point of view, don’t put in­dus­tri­al ac­tion in­to place this week, this week­end. To­ba­go needs the flights. We haven’t had busi­ness like this for a num­ber of years. We need to get the busi­ness and the is­land mov­ing again. Com­ing out from the re­ports from Blue Food in­to the Car­ni­val and the book­ings go­ing in­to Christ­mas, we are see­ing a num­ber of book­ings tak­ing place,” he said.

“I know you have your in­dus­tri­al is­sues with CAL, but put them on the back burn­er this week­end and make sure that the flights come.”

Cruick­shank said Car­ni­val sea­son has giv­en a huge boost to To­ba­go’s tourism sec­tor, with car rentals, ho­tels, par­ties, and mas bands re­port­ing ma­jor gains.

Cham­ber pres­i­dent Cur­tis Williams asked CAL to col­lab­o­rate more close­ly with To­ba­go to han­dle the ex­pect­ed de­mand for next year’s events.

He said, “Next year we are go­ing to have a brand-new ter­mi­nal build­ing and there are go­ing to be more peo­ple on the is­land. We have to man­age it and so we want CAL to come on board. The CAL sto­ry has been go­ing on for a num­ber of years and we have to fix it.”

The ANR Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port project is ex­pect­ed to be com­plet­ed in the first quar­ter of 2025.

The cham­ber said while CAL man­aged to meet flight de­mands for this week­end, it was done too late. On the is­sue of crime, Williams said he is com­fort­ed by the po­lice strat­e­gy this Car­ni­val. the trou­ble­mak­ers away.