OT­TO CAR­RING­TON

Se­nior Re­porter

Caribbean Air­lines pi­lots protest­ed at Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port this morn­ing, but the demon­stra­tion did not dis­rupt flights in or out of the coun­try.

The pi­lots gath­ered out­side the air­port en­trance, hold­ing plac­ards and call­ing on the gov­ern­ment to set­tle out­stand­ing wages and in­cre­ments owed to them.

Pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Air­line Pi­lots As­so­ci­a­tion (TTAL­PA), Ja­son Wick­ham, as­sured that their protest was or­ga­nized in a way that did not im­pact trav­ellers en­ter­ing or leav­ing the coun­try.

He con­firmed that the pi­lots were us­ing their off-du­ty hours to stage the protest.

The TTAL­PA Pres­i­dent stat­ed that the As­so­ci­a­tion has agreed to the gov­ern­ment's 4-per­cent wage of­fer. TTAL­PA al­so has sub­mit­ted their agree­ment to the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer but is yet to re­ceive a re­sponse.

Ja­son Wick­ham em­pha­sized that they are aligned with the gov­ern­ment's pro­pos­al and hope that good sense will pre­vail in re­solv­ing the is­sue swift­ly.

“As far as we are aware, we haven't heard any­thing from the pow­ers-that-be re­spon­si­ble for the ne­go­ti­a­tions, and no, we haven't heard any­thing from the gov­ern­ment,” he told Guardian Me­dia.

“That is why we are here to­day, ask­ing the line min­is­ter, ‘Mr. Min­is­ter, please step in and help set­tle our out­stand­ing nine-year col­lec­tive agree­ment, please’.”

Mean­while, Caribbean Air­lines has de­scribed this morn­ing's ac­tion as both “un­ex­pect­ed “and “dis­ap­point­ing”.

The air­line says it has been en­gag­ing in dis­cus­sions with TTAL­PA and agree­ment has been reached on sev­er­al mat­ters.

It al­so re­vealed that the pi­lots have re­ceived their an­nu­al in­cre­ment of up to three per­cent.