CAL flew 13,000 over Easter weekend

Caribbean Airlines (CAL) announced via a press release yesterday that it transported over 13,000 people on the domestic airbridge over the long Eastern weekend, despite reports of long wait by inter-island ferry passengers for flights.

Ferry passengers were re-routed to CAL flights because of ongoing trouble on the seabridge. There were, however, reports of ferry passengers having to wait for very long periods at Piarco International Airport to get on flights to Tobago. Attempts to contact Dionne Ligoure, CAL’s head corporate communications, for a comment yesterday were unsuccessful.

In the release, CAL said that in the last year, it met and exceeded demand expectations during Christmas, Carnival, Easter and other holiday weekends. “The airline continues to closely manage the airbridge and remains committed to providing consistent and reliable service throughout its 20 destination network.”

Giving detailed figures, the airline transported 3,602 passengers on March 29; 3,784 on March 30; 2,741 on March 31 and 2,926 on April 1, for a total of 13,053 passengers up to April 1. On Easter Monday, it provided a proposed seating capacity of 3,980. Figures as to how many travelled yesterday are yet to be provided.

However, up to Sunday, the airline provided a seating capacity of 16,372. The release quoted CAL’s ceo Garvin Medera as saying, “We would like to commend our teams who worked diligently during the Easter period to ensure our operational targets were met, and exceeded. Extra capacity was placed on the air bridge, way beyond our original projections given the significant number of persons affected by the limited ferry service, as well as our confirmed customers and stand-by travellers.”