Caribbean Air­lines Lim­it­ed (CAL) has now called for the in­ter­ven­tion of Min­is­ter of Labour Stephen Mc Clashie, fol­low­ing a break­down in ne­go­ti­a­tions with its pi­lots.

In a me­dia re­lease yes­ter­day, CAL said it had en­gaged the Trinidad and To­ba­go Air­line Pi­lots’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTAL­PA) on No­vem­ber 22, 2023, re­gard­ing the on­go­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions for the col­lec­tive agree­ment for pi­lots from the pe­ri­od Sep­tem­ber 1, 2015, to Au­gust 31, 2018.

“Af­ter care­ful con­sid­er­a­tion and in light of the chal­lenges faced in reach­ing a mu­tu­al­ly agree­able res­o­lu­tion, Caribbean Air­lines Lim­it­ed has de­cid­ed to en­gage the process­es un­der the In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Act and to have the mat­ter re­port­ed to the Min­is­ter of Labour,” CAL said.

It added, “Caribbean Air­lines Lim­it­ed re­mains com­mit­ted to a con­struc­tive and trans­par­ent di­a­logue with TTAL­PA and is hope­ful that the in­ter­ven­tion of the Min­is­ter of Labour will lead to an ear­ly res­o­lu­tion.”

Fol­low­ing CAL’s de­ci­sion to es­ca­late the mat­ter, the TTAL­PA ex­ec­u­tive held a meet­ing last night to dis­cuss the on­go­ing is­sue.

On Au­gust 20, 2023, the In­dus­tri­al Court is­sued an in­junc­tion against TTAL­PA, pre­vent­ing pi­lots from tak­ing in­dus­tri­al ac­tion.

This af­ter 93 pi­lots at­tached to CAL had called in sick dur­ing the pe­ri­od Au­gust 18-20, crip­pling the air­line’s op­er­a­tions. The move cost the State-owned air­line mil­lions of dol­lars, as over 60 flights were af­fect­ed.

It al­so served as a ma­jor hit to the tourism sec­tor, as To­ba­go stake­hold­ers not­ed that many vis­i­tors who came for the pop­u­lar Great Race week­end had stat­ed they may not come back due to the prob­lem­at­ic air­bridge sit­u­a­tion.

At that time, The T&T Air­line Pi­lots’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTAL­PA) had de­nied ini­ti­at­ing a strike.