Sturge: T&T airspace remains open

The Min­istry of De­fence has is­sued a state­ment con­firm­ing that Trinidad and To­ba­go’s air­space re­mains open to all com­mer­cial air­craft. It comes af­ter US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump an­nounced the clo­sure of Venezue­lan air­space on Sat­ur­day morn­ing.

Min­is­ter of De­fence Wayne Sturge said the Min­istry is re­spon­si­ble for con­trol­ling the coun­try’s air­space and ter­ri­to­r­i­al wa­ters. He as­sured the pub­lic that lo­cal, re­gion­al, and in­ter­na­tion­al air­lines con­tin­ue to op­er­ate flights in­to and out of Trinidad and To­ba­go with­out in­ter­rup­tion.

Min­is­ter Sturge stat­ed that the Min­istry will pro­vide of­fi­cial up­dates in a time­ly man­ner if any changes to air­space ac­cess are re­quired.

The Min­istry urged the pub­lic to dis­re­gard re­ports cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia claim­ing that air­space was closed. Min­is­ter Sturge said these claims are false and at­trib­uted them to po­lit­i­cal­ly aligned so­cial me­dia users seek­ing to cre­ate con­fu­sion and in­sta­bil­i­ty.

Com­mer­cial air­lines op­er­at­ing in Trinidad and To­ba­go have not re­port­ed any dis­rup­tions, ac­cord­ing to the Min­istry. Min­is­ter Sturge em­pha­sized that the trav­el­ling pub­lic can con­tin­ue to plan flights nor­mal­ly.

The Min­istry con­firmed it will con­tin­ue to mon­i­tor air­space and en­sure that in­for­ma­tion is com­mu­ni­cat­ed clear­ly to the pub­lic.

Min­is­ter Sturge re­it­er­at­ed that any of­fi­cial no­tices re­gard­ing air­space sta­tus will be is­sued di­rect­ly by the Min­istry of De­fence and that there is no rea­son for the pub­lic to be con­cerned about cur­rent flight op­er­a­tions.