Airport Authority says Piarco passenger traffic remains robust

The Air­ports Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go is re­ject­ing claims that pas­sen­ger traf­fic at Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port has fall­en sig­nif­i­cant­ly, point­ing to strong traf­fic dur­ing the Ju­ly/Au­gust va­ca­tion pe­ri­od.

The Au­thor­i­ty said in­ter­na­tion­al vis­i­tor traf­fic at Pi­ar­co reached 181,411 in Ju­ly 2026, com­pared with 178,298 in Ju­ly 2025.

It al­so re­port­ed 147,997 in­ter­na­tion­al pas­sen­gers in June 2026, com­pared with 155,040 in June 2025, rep­re­sent­ing a 4.5 per cent de­cline.

The fig­ures dif­fer sig­nif­i­cant­ly from those cit­ed in a Sep­tem­ber 14 Trinidad Ex­press opin­ion piece, which said Pi­ar­co han­dled about 185,000 in­ter­na­tion­al pas­sen­gers in June 2026, com­pared with 385,000 in 2025.

The Air­ports Au­thor­i­ty did not ad­dress the 385,000 fig­ure di­rect­ly but said its da­ta did not sup­port a char­ac­ter­i­sa­tion of Pi­ar­co as be­ing “sig­nif­i­cant­ly emp­ti­er”.

It said pas­sen­ger traf­fic should al­so not be as­sessed sole­ly on in­ter­na­tion­al through­put, not­ing that do­mes­tic traf­fic has re­mained “ex­treme­ly buoy­ant” and has sur­passed pre-Covid fig­ures in some in­stances.

The Au­thor­i­ty al­so point­ed to the ad­di­tion of Winair and in­ter­Caribbean Air­ways to Trinidad and To­ba­go’s air-ser­vice net­work this year.

It said Con­tour Air­lines and Sun­rise Air­ways are ex­pect­ed to be­gin ser­vices in Oc­to­ber.

Con­tour is sched­uled to launch a twice-week­ly non­stop ser­vice be­tween Do­mini­ca and Pi­ar­co from Oc­to­ber 5, while al­so of­fer­ing one-stop, same-plane ser­vice be­tween San Juan and Pi­ar­co and be­tween St Thomas and Pi­ar­co.

The Au­thor­i­ty said it re­mains fo­cused on ex­pand­ing air ser­vices at Pi­ar­co and ANR Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port and strength­en­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al con­nec­tiv­i­ty.