Augustine says airbridge subsidy not being removed

Chief Sec­re­tary of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA), Far­ley Au­gus­tine, says To­bag­o­ni­ans can be as­sured that no pol­i­cy to re­move the do­mes­tic air­bridge sub­sidy is about to be rolled out.

In a so­cial me­dia post to­day, Au­gus­tine said the mat­ter was not dis­cussed dur­ing a re­cent meet­ing with the Min­is­ter of Tourism, and he reaf­firmed his long-stand­ing po­si­tion on Caribbean Air­lines op­er­at­ing as a pub­lic trans­porta­tion ser­vice.

Au­gus­tine said:

“The Min­is­ter of Tourism met with me two weeks ago and this was nev­er dis­cussed. Around that same time, I had a lengthy pub­lic dis­course about the eco­nom­ic ben­e­fits of CAL as a pub­lic trans­porta­tion ser­vice and that po­si­tion re­mains. In fact, that has al­ways been my po­si­tion. So, I am hap­py to hear a se­nior cab­i­net min­is­ter re­fute the pol­i­cy po­si­tion of the Min­is­ter of Tourism so firm­ly. To­bag­o­ni­ans can be as­sured that no pol­i­cy to re­move the sub­sidy is about to be rolled out.”

His com­ments come amid Gov­ern­ment dis­cus­sions on pro­posed changes to do­mes­tic air­bridge pric­ing, which have sparked pub­lic at­ten­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to a re­port pub­lished in the Guardian news­pa­per to­day, Min­is­ter of Trade, In­dus­try and Tourism Satyaka­ma “Ka­ma” Ma­haraj said pas­sen­gers could pay be­tween $960 and $1,000 to trav­el be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go un­der a pro­posed peak-pe­ri­od, un­sub­sidised fare sys­tem.

Caribbean Air­lines cur­rent­ly op­er­ates the do­mes­tic route at a sub­sidised fare of about $400.

Ma­haraj said Gov­ern­ment is con­sid­er­ing in­tro­duc­ing morn­ing and evening flights with­out sub­sidy, aimed at eas­ing fi­nan­cial pres­sure on the air­line and im­prov­ing seat avail­abil­i­ty dur­ing peak de­mand pe­ri­ods.

“We’re look­ing at two un­sub­sidised flights at peak times, morn­ing and evening, where pas­sen­gers pay for a guar­an­teed seat. If de­mand in­creas­es, more flights can be added,” he said.

This morn­ing, En­er­gy and En­er­gy Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal con­firmed that there has been no Cab­i­net de­ci­sion on the is­sue of air­bridge sub­si­dies, adding fur­ther un­cer­tain­ty around the pro­pos­al.