Beckles calls for Maharaj resignation over $1,000 airbridge fares

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les is call­ing for the res­ig­na­tion of Trade, In­vest­ment and Tourism Min­is­ter Satyaka­ma Ma­haraj, ac­cus­ing him of fail­ing to act in the best in­ter­est of cit­i­zens fol­low­ing a pro­posed hike in do­mes­tic air­fares.

Beck­les is­sued the call on Fri­day as she strong­ly crit­i­cised the Gov­ern­ment’s con­sid­er­a­tion of high­er peak-pe­ri­od tick­et prices on the air­bridge.

On Thurs­day, Trade, In­vest­ment and Tourism Min­is­ter Satyaka­ma Ma­haraj an­nounced that a pro­pos­al has been put be­fore Cab­i­net which could see mem­bers of the pub­lic pay­ing be­tween $960 and $1,000 to trav­el be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go via Caribbean Air­lines dur­ing peak pe­ri­ods, as Gov­ern­ment con­sid­ers in­tro­duc­ing un­sub­sidised flights on the do­mes­tic air­bridge.

In a state­ment, Beck­les de­scribed the move as “op­pres­sive” and warned it would have far-reach­ing con­se­quences for or­di­nary cit­i­zens—par­tic­u­lar­ly those who re­ly on the air­bridge for dai­ly trav­el be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go.

She ar­gued that the pro­posed in­crease, from ap­prox­i­mate­ly $400 to as much as $1,000, rep­re­sents a steep and sud­den jump that would dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly af­fect work­ing-class fam­i­lies and fre­quent trav­ellers.

“A sud­den fare in­crease of over 100 per cent can­not be con­sid­ered ‘noth­ing’ by any­one oth­er than a clear­ly dis­con­nect­ed Cab­i­net,” Beck­les said.

The Op­po­si­tion Leader warned that high­er peak-pe­ri­od fares would re­duce pre­dictable ac­cess to flights, dis­rupt the move­ment of peo­ple, and place ad­di­tion­al strain on To­ba­go’s econ­o­my.

She said busi­ness­es on the is­land, par­tic­u­lar­ly those in the tourism and hos­pi­tal­i­ty sec­tors, would face in­creased op­er­at­ing costs, which are like­ly to be passed on to con­sumers.

Ac­cord­ing to Beck­les, the rip­ple ef­fects could ex­tend be­yond tourism, im­pact­ing ac­cess to health­care and ed­u­ca­tion for cit­i­zens who de­pend on af­ford­able in­ter-is­land trav­el.

She fur­ther ar­gued that re­duced af­ford­abil­i­ty could dis­cour­age do­mes­tic trav­el, un­der­min­ing vis­i­tor flow in­to To­ba­go and af­fect­ing small busi­ness­es such as guest­hous­es, taxi op­er­a­tors, tour guides, and food ven­dors.

Beck­les al­so ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of tak­ing what she de­scribed as a “lazy strat­e­gy” by opt­ing for fare in­creas­es in­stead of ad­dress­ing in­ef­fi­cien­cies with­in Caribbean Air­lines and im­prov­ing re­li­a­bil­i­ty on the air­bridge.

She main­tained that sub­sidised in­ter-is­land trav­el is a long­stand­ing na­tion­al prin­ci­ple meant to pre­serve uni­ty and en­sure equal ac­cess with­in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“Once sub­sidised con­nec­tiv­i­ty be­tween the is­lands is treat­ed as ex­pend­able, noth­ing is pro­tect­ed,” she warned, sug­gest­ing that car­go and sea bridge fares could al­so come un­der threat.

Beck­les urged the Gov­ern­ment to re­con­sid­er the pro­pos­al and pur­sue so­lu­tions that would not shift the fi­nan­cial bur­den on­to the trav­el­ling pub­lic.