Ke­jan Haynes

Min­is­ter of Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts Ran­dall Mitchell es­ti­mates vis­i­tor ar­rival num­bers for Car­ni­val 2023 may have been low­er than ar­rivals for the coun­try’s last full fledged Car­ni­val in 2020.

Nev­er­the­less he said, all things con­sid­ered, Car­ni­val was “ex­cel­lent and thor­ough­ly en­joy­able.”

The min­is­ter spoke to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day in a tele­phone in­ter­view.

Mitchell ac­knowl­edged he’s still await­ing fi­nal fig­ures from the Air­ports Au­thor­i­ty, the Cen­tral Sta­tis­ti­cal Of­fice and the Im­mi­gra­tion De­part­ment, but he said there are sim­ply few­er flights com­ing in­to Trinidad and To­ba­go than there were in 2020.

“Per­sons who want­ed to vis­it to en­joy our Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions sim­ply could not get a flight,” Mitchell said. “Most air­lines have ex­pe­ri­enced and con­tin­ue to ex­pe­ri­ence op­er­a­tional is­sues that are to­tal­ly out of our con­trol.”

Mitchell said when LI­AT closed down, the coun­try lost around 2,584 seats per week, while sev­er­al oth­er air­lines still have not re­turned to their pre-pan­dem­ic routes.

“West­Jet has not yet restart­ed out of Toron­to, and nei­ther Unit­ed Air­lines from New Jer­sey or Jet­Blue from Flori­da, Caribbean Air­lines as well has al­so re­duced its Boe­ing fleet to nine and this is the gen­er­al state of the air­line in­dus­try com­ing out of the COVID 19 pan­dem­ic and that has dis­rupt­ed air trans­port world­wide,” Mitchell said.

Mitchell said Trinidad and To­ba­go has shown it­self to be a re­silient coun­try that is “com­plete­ly in love with prac­tis­ing and show­cas­ing our own cul­ture to the world.” He said he “can’t wait” for Car­ni­val 2024.