To­ba­go West MP Sham­fa Cud­joe has called Sun­day’s ac­tion by CAL pi­lots a “wild­cat strike” that was se­cret­ly planned and crafti­ly ex­e­cut­ed. She be­lieves be­cause of it, the air­line’s cred­i­bil­i­ty has been shot; and the least it can do is of­fer re­funds to af­fect­ed cus­tomers.

“And what we have dis­cussed with CAL is to pro­vide a re­fund for do­mes­tic per­sons who had pur­chased tick­ets,” Cud­joe said in a me­dia con­fer­ence yes­ter­day at the Cen­tral Ad­min­is­tra­tive Ser­vices Build­ing in Scar­bor­ough.

“We re­fund them their air­fare and pro­vide a cred­it for them to trav­el in the fu­ture. And for those who had trav­elled in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, whilst they do not get a re­fund of the air­fare be­cause we have tak­en them back home, they’re go­ing to get a cred­it to­wards us­ing to come back to Trinidad and To­ba­go in the fu­ture.”

Cud­joe, who said the is­sue was raised in a con­ver­sa­tion she had with CAL CEO Garvin Med­era yes­ter­day, didn’t pro­vide a fig­ure on just how much it would cost and how many pas­sen­gers would have to be re­fund­ed.

“The cred­i­bil­i­ty of Caribbean Air­lines has been dam­aged. By giv­ing the per­sons, the trav­ellers a re­fund, of course, that may help. But I think what we ex­pe­ri­enced on Sun­day was ridicu­lous,” Cud­joe said.

She said any per­son trav­el­ling on that day was left with a sour taste in their mouth for Trinidad and To­ba­go and Caribbean Air­lines.

She said while ne­go­ti­a­tions are still go­ing on be­tween the air­line and the T&T Air­line Pi­lots’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTAL­PA), she hoped every­thing would come to a “fruit­ful and rea­son­able” res­o­lu­tion.

Cud­joe said those who are call­ing for a sep­a­rate air­line to break CAL’s mo­nop­oly are will­ing to try but they will have trou­ble, con­sid­er­ing how heav­i­ly sub­sidised flights are, es­pe­cial­ly on the do­mes­tic air­bridge.

“Let’s know if you are able to find per­sons in Trinidad and To­ba­go who are will­ing to pay $1,000 re­turn tick­et and that is break­ing even. So, this new air­line that you in­tend to bring hasn’t made a prof­it yet,” Cud­joe ar­gued.

“As des­per­ate as you are to get be­tween the is­lands, are you go­ing to say, ‘hmm, let me go pay my $1,000?’ There may be some that can do it, I’m sure there are peo­ple among us who can do it. But the av­er­age per­son who re­al­ly de­pends on the ser­vice, I don’t see the av­er­age Joe pay­ing $1,000 over 400.”

While Cud­joe was most­ly de­fen­sive of the air­line and the man­age­ment, she said it could do a lot bet­ter when it comes to com­mu­ni­cat­ing with the pub­lic. She said peo­ple can­not con­nect with me­dia re­leas­es and the air­line needs peo­ple fac­ing the pub­lic to own up to their re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

“When some­thing hap­pens, I need to see a face from CAL out there speak­ing to peo­ple and an­swer­ing ques­tions and treat­ing with the is­sues raised by the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go,” Cud­joe said.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, CAL’s head of Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Dionne Ligoure con­firmed the air­line had ac­cept­ed Cab­i­net’s sug­ges­tion on re­fund­ing do­mes­tic pas­sen­gers who were in­con­ve­nienced.