Trinidad and To­ba­go on Wednes­day wel­comed the de­ci­sion by Air Cana­da to re­sume di­rect flights from Cana­da be­gin­ning in May next year.

“To­day’s an­nounce­ment marks a sig­nif­i­cant mo­ment for trav­el and for the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go as we cel­e­brate the re­turn of Air Cana­da’s di­rect ser­vice from Toron­to fol­low­ing the ces­sa­tion due to the pan­dem­ic,” said Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts Min­is­ter, Ran­dall Mitchell

“This flight will again bring the world, and in par­tic­u­lar our di­as­po­ra clos­er to us, fa­cil­i­tat­ing tourism, trade, and the ex­change of cul­ture be­tween Cana­da and our beau­ti­ful is­lands.

“We are con­fi­dent that this en­hanced con­nec­tiv­i­ty will dri­ve new op­por­tu­ni­ties for our hos­pi­tal­i­ty in­dus­try and oth­er sec­tors, as well as en­cour­age Cana­di­ans to vis­it and ex­plore the rich her­itage, di­verse land­scapes, and warm hos­pi­tal­i­ty that our na­tion is known for,” Mitchell added.

In Au­gust last year, the car­ri­er had an­nounced a sus­pen­sion of its ser­vice to Trinidad and To­ba­go just three months af­ter it had re­sumed flights to the Caribbean coun­try.

“Air Cana­da has cur­rent­ly sus­pend­ed ser­vice be­tween Toron­to and Port of Spain for 2023. At this point in time, we have no plans for the re­sump­tion of this route,” the Mon­tre­al-based air­line said then.

The four-times-week­ly flights will on May 1, 2025, fur­ther en­hanc­ing con­nec­tiv­i­ty and econ­o­my of trav­el be­tween Cana­da and Trinidad and To­ba­go and pro­vid­ing trav­ellers with greater ac­cess to des­ti­na­tion.

Air Cana­da will op­er­ate a Boe­ing’s 737 Max 8 with 169 seats and Mitchell said “we met with Air Cana­da in sev­er­al “Routes Amer­i­c­as” event, and at that time there was some un­cer­tain­ty of the tim­ing of their re­turn.

“So, to­day we are very ex­cit­ed about this news. The air­line will pro­vide the vi­tal air link, and we look for­ward to wel­com­ing vis­i­tors from the Cana­di­an mar­ket back to Trinidad and To­ba­go with open arms. We en­cour­age both leisure, VFR, and busi­ness trav­ellers to take ad­van­tage of this di­rect con­nec­tion to dis­cov­er all that our is­lands have to of­fer,” he added.

The gov­ern­ment said this re­stored air link, since the pan­dem­ic, is a sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone for Trinidad and To­ba­go’s trade and tourism sec­tors, mark­ing an im­por­tant step in the re­cov­ery and growth of in­ter­na­tion­al trav­el.

“The ad­di­tion of more fre­quent flights to and from Toron­to will not on­ly en­cour­age more Cana­di­an vis­i­tors to ex­pe­ri­ence the unique cul­ture, at­trac­tions, and nat­ur­al beau­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go, but will al­so sup­port busi­ness and in­vest­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties be­tween the two na­tions,” the state­ment said.

It said that the re­turn of the Air Cana­da ser­vice to Trinidad and To­ba­go is ex­pect­ed to have a pos­i­tive im­pact on sev­er­al key ar­eas, in­clud­ing, tourism growth and in­creased vis­i­tors, eas­i­er trav­el for busi­ness and trade, and cul­tur­al ex­change. —(CMC)