Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

The Port Au­thor­i­ty has sched­uled sev­en ad­di­tion­al round trips on the seabridge be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go for the Oc­to­ber Car­ni­val pe­ri­od, pro­vid­ing more than 11,000 ex­tra pas­sen­ger seats, caus­ing a rush for tick­ets and dif­fi­cul­ties ac­cess­ing the site.

A re­view of the of­fi­cial sched­ules shows that be­tween Oc­to­ber 23 and 29, three of the in­ter-is­land ves­sels will op­er­ate out­side their reg­u­lar timetable to move pas­sen­gers for the fes­ti­val.

The Galleons Pas­sage will make the largest con­tri­bu­tion. It has been as­signed four ad­di­tion­al round trips on Oc­to­ber 23, 24, 27 and 28. With a ca­pac­i­ty for about 700 pas­sen­gers, those ex­tra sail­ings amount to 5,600 ad­di­tion­al seats. The APT James will add two ex­tra round trips on Oc­to­ber 28 and 29. At 926 pas­sen­gers per sail­ing, this trans­lates to 3,704 seats across both di­rec­tions.

The Buc­coo Reef has been sched­uled for one ad­di­tion­al round trip on Oc­to­ber 29. Its 1,000-pas­sen­ger ca­pac­i­ty adds 2,000 seats to the tal­ly.

Tak­en to­geth­er, the ad­di­tion­al sail­ings pro­vide 11,304 pas­sen­ger seats. Half of that fig­ure, 5,652 seats, rep­re­sents one-way ca­pac­i­ty from Port-of-Spain to Scar­bor­ough dur­ing the Car­ni­val week.

To­ba­go Oc­to­ber Car­ni­val As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Dex­ter Sandy said the re­lease of the sched­ules has al­ready trig­gered a rush by pas­sen­gers.

“Def­i­nite­ly, with the launch of the in­ter-is­land fer­ry sched­ule to­day, there has def­i­nite­ly been a buzz. I know a lot of per­sons have been call­ing and stat­ing that, you know, they’re head­ing to the of­fices, whether it be an agent or the Port Au­thor­i­ty, to make pur­chas­es.

“How­ev­er, we have had re­port­ed chal­lenges with ac­cess­ing the web­site, giv­en that the site is not load­ing or it’s tim­ing out. A lot of per­sons called to state that, and I guess it’s based on the high de­mand at this point in time. But it’s very en­cour­ag­ing to see that the In­ter-Is­land Fer­ry Com­pa­ny has added on these seats in an­tic­i­pa­tion of the de­mand that we’re go­ing to ex­pe­ri­ence at that point in time.

“This all goes well for all mas bands, and, you know, it en­cour­ages us to look for­ward to a high­er lev­el of sales once these per­sons are able to get their seats.”

Trans­port for the Oc­to­ber Car­ni­val has been a re­cur­ring is­sue since the event was in­tro­duced. Air­lift ca­pac­i­ty is typ­i­cal­ly lim­it­ed and quick­ly sold out, while fer­ry de­mand has re­peat­ed­ly out­stripped sup­ply.