Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Tourism Sec­re­tary Tashia Bur­ris has de­fend­ed the di­vi­sion’s over­seas trav­el ex­pens­es, in­sist­ing she has not failed in ef­forts to im­prove the is­land’s air­lift de­spite not se­cur­ing new air­lines.

At a THA ple­nary sit­ting yes­ter­day, she point­ed to fi­nan­cial con­straints and lack of au­thor­i­ty over civ­il avi­a­tion ap­provals as key chal­lenges.

Since last Oc­to­ber, the di­vi­sion has spent more than $927,000 on in­ter­na­tion­al trav­el to trade shows and in­dus­try meet­ings, in­clud­ing the World Trav­el Mar­ket in Lon­don, the Caribbean Ho­tel In­vest­ment Con­fer­ence in Bar­ba­dos, and Air Ser­vice De­vel­op­ment train­ing in the Unit­ed States.

The trav­el ex­pens­es were re­vealed when THA Mi­nor­i­ty Leader Kelvon Mor­ris asked for a break­down of trips, ex­pen­di­ture and the po­si­tions of those who trav­elled. He al­so asked why no new air­lines had been se­cured for To­ba­go, point­ing out that un­der the pre­vi­ous PNM-led THA ad­min­is­tra­tion, air­lines such as Sun­wing had been brought in.

“What are the tan­gi­ble ben­e­fits to the peo­ple of To­ba­go as a re­sult of that $1 mil­lion? Have we se­cured a new air­line? Have we se­cured a new route? Have we se­cured a new car­ri­er? Have we seen any ex­pan­sion in ser­vices? What are the tan­gi­ble ben­e­fits to the peo­ple of To­ba­go?” he asked.

Bur­ris re­spond­ed that un­like pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tions, the cur­rent THA does not ben­e­fit from the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment’s rolling plan, which pre­vi­ous­ly al­lo­cat­ed sig­nif­i­cant fund­ing for air­lift.

“This To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly is no longer in a po­si­tion where it is re­ceiv­ing hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars from the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment to pay for air­lift. We are re­ceiv­ing our al­lo­ca­tion of $42 mil­lion, which is what TTAL gets every year,” she said.

“TTAL is charged with pay­ing for air­lift, mar­ket­ing, and re­cur­rent ex­pens­es.

“Based on cur­rent ex­pens­es and the con­tracts we cur­rent­ly have with British Air­ways and Con­dor, there is no more mon­ey to pay for air­lift. So, no, I don’t con­sid­er my tenure a fail­ure.”

Mor­ris pressed fur­ther, ask­ing whether the THA had di­rect­ly en­gaged any air­lines and the out­come of those dis­cus­sions.

Bur­ris ex­plained that while con­ver­sa­tions had tak­en place, the THA does not have the au­thor­i­ty to fi­nalise air ser­vice agree­ments, which fall un­der the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port.

“Planes don’t just drop out of the sky and land at the air­port, you have to have an air ser­vices agree­ment in place. The air­line has to have a li­cense to fly to the des­ti­na­tion,” she said.

“The To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly has been hav­ing con­ver­sa­tions, but the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly is not in a po­si­tion where it can sign an air ser­vices agree­ment. That is not with­in our re­mit.”

Mor­ris was not sat­is­fied with that re­sponse and said To­bag­o­ni­ans ex­pect re­sults, not ex­cus­es.

“The peo­ple of To­ba­go are say­ing we need ad­di­tion­al car­ri­ers, we need ad­di­tion­al air­lines com­ing to To­ba­go, pro­vid­ing ad­di­tion­al routes and cre­at­ing com­pe­ti­tion that could re­dound to re­duced air­fares.

“What we have seen is an ad­min­is­tra­tion spend­ing mon­ey to go to all these dif­fer­ent trade shows, but to date, we have not had a sin­gle ad­di­tion­al air­line fly­ing to To­ba­go,” he said.

Bur­ris pushed back, claim­ing the THA had made progress in oth­er ar­eas, in­clud­ing im­proved mar­ket­ing part­ner­ships and rene­go­ti­at­ed terms with British Air­ways that had re­duced costs. She al­so said dis­cus­sions with air­lines and tour op­er­a­tors are on­go­ing.

“The To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly is work­ing with what we have. We have to be re­al­is­tic about what the cur­rent eco­nom­ic con­straints are, what our fis­cal lim­i­ta­tions are, and the fact that we are not the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment and it is for rea­sons like these that To­ba­go needs more au­ton­o­my.”

Last year, Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine told a ple­nary sit­ting the THA had start­ed ne­go­ti­a­tions with King­dom Air­lines (KAL), an en­ti­ty based in Trinidad, that was ini­tial­ly ex­pect­ed to be­gin op­er­a­tions in Oc­to­ber last year. How­ev­er, de­lays in ac­quir­ing planes has pushed back the start date.

“The To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly is ac­tu­al­ly await­ing the fi­nal pro­pos­al from KAL and al­so their re­quest for mar­ket­ing sup­port. We are cur­rent­ly await­ing that,” Au­gus­tine said.