Chamber head: Caribbean Airlines not serious about Tobago

State airline Caribbean Airlines  (CAL) is not serious about working with Tobago, head of the island’s arm of the Chamber of Industry and Commerce Diane Hadad lamented yesterday.

Hadad was one of the presenters at the Chamber’s third pre-Budget breakfast meeting at its Westmoorings headquarters.

She said the Chamber and CAL were among the groups that met recently to discuss the island’s needs, including the Ministry of Finance and the Tobago House of Assembly.

“I was very disappointed with the national airline’s presentation. Nothing in it said they were serious about Tobago. It was really disheartening because they said their directive was to be financially viable,” she said.

She compared the air bridge between the islands to the Public Transport Service Corporation (PTSC).

“The air bridge is our PTSC. We have to go to Trinidad for almost everything...it is indispensable,” she said.

She also said the island needed a new airport, not just a refurbished one. It also needed more direct flights. She said suggestions were made to the Ministry (of Finance) to consider the fuel subsidy as one of the ways to make the island more attractive to foreign airlines.

Procedures to move transit passengers from Trinidad to Tobago, currently “quite a nightmare”, was also something that needed serious consideration, she said.

The port facilities and processing speeds in Tobago also need an upgrade she said.

“When you have to deal without port facilities just to bring in things from Trinidad is a challenge. We have unreliable shipment times. I want us to understand how we do business...it is very costly and hard. Our ports need to be addressed if we want to encourage manufacturing. We can’t say we want to move from tourism and into manufacturing if we don’t have proper infrastructure in place,” she said.

Tobago was also suffering from a labor shortage, she said, because workers preferred working for the Tobago House of Assembly (THA) rather than the private sector.

She said the daily rate of absenteeism was 25 percent and very frequently people gave no notice and just left their jobs to go to work for the THA.          

Source:   http://www.trinidadexpress.com