T&T must Pay up!

Trinidad is being encouraged to hand over to Barbados and other Eastern Caribbean countries monies owed for navigation fees paid by airlines travelling through their airspace.

 

Leading off the Parliamentary debate on the Civil Aviation Bill 2016, Minister of Tourism and International Transport Richard Sealy pointed out that the air space in the South Eastern part of the region is administered by Piarco International Airport, which is collecting fees for those aircraft landing in territories falling into this area. 

 

Saying there is an agreement that these funds would be shared appropriately with these countries, he disclosed, however, that Trinidad is not passing them on. 

 

“Based on the way region is set up, the air space in the south eastern part of region is administered by Piarco and the Piarco FIR... have been collecting fees for navigating aircraft that are coming to Barbados, and apparently in the course of collecting those fees, even though there is an agreement that some of those fees would be shared appropriately with the other territories in the Eastern Caribbean, that process has not quite occurred. I would say that it has slipped the Trinidadian authorities that it has to send a cheque to Barbados,” he asserted.

 

The minister noted that the matter is on the agenda for the upcoming heads of government meeting scheduled for next month.

 

 “It is kind of ironic because Grantley Adams is a busier airport than Piarco. We get 30,000 movements a year -  a movement is a landing or a  take-off, so this issue of the navigational space, and the revenue that we are not getting has been kicked right up to the level of the heads of government and I understand that they are supposed to meet in another couple of weeks...and I understand that the matter is going to be raised again,” Sealy said.

 

He continued, “The Trinidad Civil Aviation Authority has been building some lovely buildings and doing some good things and I am very happy for them, but I would just like that whatever they have for the Eastern Caribbean and Barbados in particular, if they would just send the cheque across we would not object at all.” (JMB)