Trinidad and To­ba­go and the State of Qatar signed an air ser­vices agree­ment on Thurs­day in Do­ha which would see des­ig­nat­ed air­lines from the two coun­tries gain­ing un­lim­it­ed and un­re­strict­ed traf­fic rights for both pas­sen­ger and car­go flights. 

Qatar has been sign­ing more air ser­vices agree­ments re­cent­ly with the hope it can open air­spaces for its na­tion­al car­ri­er to fly to more des­ti­na­tions around the world.

Min­is­ter of Works and Trans­port Ro­han Sinanan had first hint­ed at the pos­si­ble sign­ing in No­vem­ber last year promis­ing it would be done in Feb­ru­ary.

Trinidad and To­ba­go and Qatar are al­so re­port­ed­ly dis­cussing “re­la­tions in the fields of trans­porta­tion, civ­il avi­a­tion, air trans­porta­tion ac­tiv­i­ties, ports, and ways to fur­ther en­hance them” ac­cord­ing to Qatar’s trans­port min­istry. 

Sinanan is in the Mid­dle East as part of the Fu­ture Avi­a­tion Fo­rum 2024 in Sau­di Ara­bia. 

Ac­cord­ing to a post on the Min­istry of Works’ Face­book page, Sinanan met Dr. Ru­maih AL- Ru­maih, Vice Min­is­ter of Trans­port and Lo­gis­tics Ser­vices for Sau­di Ara­bia.

The post said some of the ar­eas dis­cussed at the meet­ing in­clud­ed:

• Fur­ther­ance of a Trinidad and To­ba­go /Sau­di Ara­bia Air Ser­vices Agree­ment;

• Tech­ni­cal Co­op­er­a­tion in the area of Avi­a­tion;

• The Air­port Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s up­com­ing Con­fer­ence; and 

• The planned build-out of the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port Aero Park - the first in the Caribbean.

Ac­cord­ing to the Min­istry of Works,  the Air­ports Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go was pre­sent­ed with a com­mem­o­ra­tive award by the Air­ports Coun­cil In­ter­na­tion­al at the 2024 ACI Asia-Pa­cif­ic & Mid­dle East / ACI World An­nu­al Gen­er­al As­sem­bly, Con­fer­ence and Ex­hi­bi­tion in Riyadh, Sau­di Ara­bia.

“This award rec­og­nizes the sup­port of the AATT to ACI’s Air­port Ex­cel­lence (APEX) pro­grammes con­cern­ing the role that our na­tion­al air­ports have played in help­ing to fos­ter im­prove­ments in the ar­eas of safe­ty aero­drome op­er­a­tions, sup­port­ing air­port staff and en­sur­ing the safe­ty of pas­sen­gers,” the Min­istry said.