Rhon­da Krys­tal Ram­bal­ly

Trans­port Min­is­ter De­vant Ma­haraj says flights would not be can­celled at the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port dur­ing the cur­few hours, 9 pm to 5 am, as a re­sult of the state of emer­gency. Ma­haraj met with stake­hold­ers of the air­line in­dus­try yes­ter­day to ad­dress their con­cerns fol­low­ing the can­cel­la­tion of two Amer­i­can Air­lines flight on Mon­day. He said there would be min­i­mal dis­com­fort to pas­sen­gers. Ma­haraj said: "The is­sue of flights be­ing can­celled will not arise dur­ing this pe­ri­od of cur­few and it will be with the min­i­mal amount of in­con­ve­nience as pos­si­ble ,bear­ing in mind that this is a state of emer­gency and there will be some de­gree of in­con­ve­nience and dis­com­fort but our at­tempt is to try and min­imise it." Ma­haraj was speak­ing at the north ter­mi­nal board­room and was ac­com­pa­nied by deputy chair­man of the Air­port Au­thor­i­ty of T&T Fe­lix Her­nan­dez, gen­er­al man­ag­er Louis Fred­er­ick and As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Eu­ly­na Julius.

Fred­er­ick said se­cu­ri­ty had been tight­ened at the air­port. Ma­haraj said among some of the is­sues ad­dressed were crew mem­bers com­ing to and from the air­craft as well as their dri­vers and dri­vers ex­pect­ed to pick up pas­sen­gers. He said a po­lice post would be sta­tioned at the air­port for the du­ra­tion of the emer­gency and per­mits would be is­sued.

Ma­haraj said it was un­for­tu­nate the op­er­a­tions man­ag­er of the Air­port Au­thor­i­ty did not con­tact the Trans­port Min­istry in an ef­fort to re­solve the mat­ter on Mon­day which saw sev­er­al pas­sen­gers be­ing in­con­ve­nienced. He as­sured all is­sues were ironed out. Ma­haraj said: "Every­thing is as nor­mal as we could make it giv­en the cir­cum­stances." He said no per­mit would be is­sued to nor­mal taxi dri­vers to ply their trade. How­ev­er, per­mits would be is­sued to spe­cif­ic air­port taxi dri­vers. Nor­mal taxi dri­vers would have to prove they were com­ing to pick up pas­sen­gers, he added. Dri­vers are be­ing asked to walk with two forms of ID and proof of trav­el arrange­ments that they are pick­ing up pas­sen­gers. Pas­sen­gers com­ing through Cus­toms will have to ob­tain a per­mit.