JAN­NELLE BERNARD

Re­porter

bernard­jan­nelle@cnc3.co.tt

Band­lead­ers in To­ba­go are hop­ing to have a re­li­able air­bridge ser­vice come Oc­to­ber, when the is­land will host its sec­ond so­lo car­ni­val.

MP for To­ba­go West Sham­fa Cud­joe says she has been con­tact­ed by some of the band­lead­ers, who raised con­cerns about the num­ber and tim­ing of flights that will be avail­able be­tween the is­lands when the is­land stages the fes­tiv­i­ties lat­er on this year.

“This con­ver­sa­tion with Min­is­ter Im­bert start­ed when I re­ceived com­mu­ni­ca­tion from some band­lead­ers in To­ba­go, who reached out to me ask­ing to en­gage Caribbean Air­lines to­wards al­le­vi­at­ing the sit­u­a­tion so they can have ac­cess to flights,” the Min­is­ter of Sport and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, who is al­so MP for To­ba­go West, stat­ed at a me­dia con­fer­ence last week.

The me­dia con­fer­ence was joint­ly held with Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, Ayan­na Web­ster-Roy, and was aimed at ad­dress­ing the con­cerns of To­bag­o­ni­ans fol­low­ing the re­cent Caribbean Air­lines flight can­cel­la­tions, which saw hun­dreds of pas­sen­gers strand­ed af­ter over 60 flights were can­celled when 54 pi­lots failed to show up to work.

The MP said while flight sched­ul­ing is the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the lo­cal air­line, she has been in con­tact with line min­is­ter for CAL, Colm Im­bert, who has giv­en her the as­sur­ance that in­creas­ing the num­ber of flights will be looked in­to.

“Min­is­ter Im­bert has com­mit­ted to do­ing a re­view and to giv­ing me a re­sponse with­in one month, so I am re­al­ly, re­al­ly look­ing for­ward to that and re­al­ly hop­ing we can get in­creased ser­vices, at least the night flights back on.”

She added, “I think as we ap­proach the car­ni­val sea­son, there is an in­creased ap­petite and de­mand for these late-night flights.”

CAL and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Air­line Pi­lots As­so­ci­a­tion (TTAL­PA) are at log­ger­heads as ne­go­ti­a­tions over pay and ben­e­fits have reached an ap­par­ent stand­still. The air­line’s of­fer of a sev­en and a half per cent pay in­crease over five years (2015-2020), cou­pled with a shift from a month­ly to an hourly pay­ment sys­tem, is be­ing re­sist­ed by the pi­lots.

CAL’s pro­posed in­crease falls sig­nif­i­cant­ly short of the pi­lots’ de­mands, fu­elling dis­con­tent among TTAL­PA’s mem­bers. At a me­dia con­fer­ence last week, CAL CEO Garvin Med­era said the air­line will be meet­ing with pi­lots to ne­go­ti­ate the way for­ward. He said the pi­lots gave him the as­sur­ance such ac­tion will not be tak­en again.

The To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly staged its in­au­gur­al so­lo Car­ni­val fes­tiv­i­ties, out­side of the ma­jor event stages in Trinidad, last year with lim­it­ed suc­cess and is hop­ing to have a big­ger and bet­ter event this year.

How­ev­er, mas­quer­aders and per­sons mere­ly seek­ing to va­ca­tion in To­ba­go have com­plained about the woes they face in plan­ning for the event due to the un­re­li­a­bil­i­ty of the air­bridge.