Tourism agency chairman: Tobago must be seen as equal partner on airbridge

TOBAGO Tourism Agency Ltd (TTAL) executive chairman Alicia Edwards made a passionate appeal on Wednesday for Tobago to be treated “not as a step child, not as an outside woman but as an equal partner in the movement of Tobago people” on the airbridge between both islands.

She said for many Tobagonians, the unavailability of flights could literally be a matter of life and death.

“I am a stroke survivor and when I had my stroke I was in Tobago and it took 48 hours for me to get a flight to get an MRI (in Trinidad). I almost died. So its personal to a lot of us,” she said.

Edwards was one of several Tobago tourism stakeholders who appeared before a virtual parliamentary Joint Select Committee (JSC) to address matters relating to the THA Division of Tourism, Culture, Antiquities and Transportation and the island’s tourism sector.

The JSC, which examines the operations of local authorities, service commissions and statutory authorities, was chaired by independent senator Dr Varma Deyalsingh.

During the sitting, JSC member Lisa Morris-Julian asked Edwards about the challenges plaguing airlift between Trinidad and Tobago and the strategies for addressing the problem.

Morris-Julian said her children attended the Island Crashers Festival at Pigeon Point over the weekend but experienced difficulties in getting a flight back to Trinidad.

She said they did not get a flight until 10 pm on Tuesday.

Edwards said the problem has been a long-standing one.

“There was BWEE. There was Air Caribbean. There were wet leases,” she said.

“There were a whole host of things and no government intervention has even been able to solve that problem for us as locals, as residents, for people who need to move essentially and also for visitors.”

Edwards observed that “a big part of our challenge and bottleneck in tourism is that 25-minutes that is currently monopolised by CAL (Caribbean Airlines).”

She continued, “What has happened for CAL post-covid19 is that every route now becomes a business piece. So the Tobago route is lined up along all the opportunities to optimise and make money on different routes and because the true cost is not passed on through the ticket and they have a limited fleet and they have their own mandate to become less reliant on subventions, the Tobago route continues not to be prioritised.”

From a tourist standpoint, Edwards also pointed to a “synergy” between CAL and the international airlines.

She said tour operators often tell the agency is that people cannot book a CAL connector through the normal sabre arrangements.

“The itinerary does not show up. And even when it shows up, there is something called an interline arrangement, which allows different airlines to honour each-other’s tickets at various legs and to share baggage seamlessly. That has not been sorted out at the level of CAL as yet.”

Edwards noted every team that has managed tourism before has had to contend with limitations that are outside the scope, not just of the agency or the division, or the office of the secretary or the chief secretary but challenges that arise nationally.

“I would love as a Tobagonian to be able to move freely between the islands.”

Referring to the virtual sitting, she said, if the Tobago delegation were to have attended physically, there was no guarantee they would have been able to return to Tobago immediately afterwards.

“I think this is a good platform to ask that those entities that are responsible for CAL and the inter-island movement to really understand the plight of Tobagonians not from a just a domestic movement place but the fact of how limiting and frustrating it is to move.

“Because if I am a visitor and I can’t get a confirmed seat to connect to Tobago or when I try to come back and I can’t, I am definitely going to go to another destination where I can get a confirmed seat.”

To rectify the issue, Edwards said the agency has been trying to build a closer relationship with CAL on several fronts.

She added TTAL cannot solve the issue on its own.