Dupres: Travellers must check airport scales for stickers

CHAIRMAN of the TT Bureau of Standards (TTBS) Lawford Dupres urged travellers to ensure airport scales include a sticker, as it will guarantee that their bags are being weighed accurately.

The TTBS, through the Legal Metrology Inspectorate (LMI) recently completed the verification of baggage scales at the Airports Authority of TT.

The Metrology Act mandates the LMI, a unit of the TTBS, to monitor and verify prescribed measuring devices used in trade, such as baggage scales, for accuracy. Once a year the scales are checked at Piarco Airport.

At Piarco yesterday, Dupres said scales must be accurate because "the charges for overweight baggage have increased significantly."

All travellers must get into the habit of ensuring scales are equipped with stickers, he said.

"This exercise is designed to ensure that all of the scales at the airport are checked by the bureau on a regular basis, and when we do it and we find that the scales are within the specifications, we put a sticker on the scale, which customers should learn to look for to know they are being accurately measured. I think that is the main benefit: it gives a sense of confidence of putting systems here at the airport."

Dupres said the TTBS also ensures scales are accurate in other places such as supermarkets and gas stations.

"We are doing the same exercise in supermarkets also, so that people will have a sense of when they go to the supermarket and you buy a pound of something, it is a pound and not 14 ounces or 19 ounces...We are doing the same thing with the gas stations, so when you buy fuel you can be assured that you are getting the accurate amount of fuel that you are paying for."

Some of the other people who welcomed the media at Piarco were TTBS executive director Derek Luk Pat, general manager of the Airports Authority Hayden Newton, acting head of the metrology divsion Erica Caruth and acting chief inspector, metrology, Pamela Ramsubhag.