IF THEY have not already done so, then our Caribbean Community Heads of Government can hardly avoid ensuring that the final agenda for their next month’s summit in Port-of-Spain includes regional air transportation as a priority issue.

Before the current widening controversy between the Guyana Government and Trinidad and Tobago’s State-owned Caribbean Airline Ltd (CAL) over claimed “excessive” rise in air fares, there were ongoing tension between the administration in Port-of-Spain and the Jamaica Government relating to the  partnership accord of their two national carriers — CAL and Air Jamaica.
But even more incessant has been the older problem pertaining to the fuel subsidy being provided CAL by its owner — to claimed competitive disadvantages for intra-regional airline, LIAT, in servicing  shared regional routes with CAL.
For his part, Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Dr Ralph Gonsalves, who has lead responsibility for regional air transportation among Heads of Government, has already made clear last month his anxiety for a special caucus with Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, host of next month’s summit, to deal specifically with regional air transportation problems.
LIAT’s chairman, Dr Jean Holder, is known to have provided an updated brief for the guidance of CARICOM cabinet ministers responsible for regional air transportation.
Surprisingly, not a single representative from CAL showed up for that important ministerial meeting last month in the Vincentian capital, Kingstown, perhaps still too preoccupied with settling its own financial and related  problems.
Whatever the extent of its domestic administrative problems or general challenges to be resolved, CAL, and, by extension, its owner, the Trinidad and Tobago Government, would appreciate that  it cannot afford to remain insensitive to the varied complaints  being raised.
The most current and vexed problem points to the spreading anger of its Guyanese customers, who are pushing their government to take a firm stand against CAL’s current fares for travel within and beyond the Caribbean Community.
Against the backdrop of mounting problems it had to confront during last year from established brand-name airlines, as well as controversial so-called “low-cost” carriers operating out of the USA, the Guyana Government was happy to announce in December that it had granted regional airline, CAL, “flagship carrier” status.

Bitter complaints
Well, six months later, the expressed disenchantment, or worse, angry verbal blasts from government officials as well as from CAL’s traditional customers, among them frequent flyers, have become the norm.
In the mix are complaints against rising fares and increasing frustration with unreliable services between Cheddi Jagan International and Piarco International, roughly an hour’s flying time between the two countries that are among the founding member states of CARICOM.
In contrast to then praise for CAL, today’s complaints are not just against escalating fares and frequent changes in flight schedules. Cabinet ministers have also been complaining about what they deem “blatant discrimination… even humiliation being routinely meted out against Guyanese passengers travelling home via Piarco International.
First to publicly raise the problem about examples of claimed “discrimination and humiliation” was Foreign Affairs Minister, Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett.
The Minister said she had witnessed “this sad state of affairs” with Guyanese passengers travelling from the USA and bound for home being discriminately required to leave the aircraft, and set apart before re-boarding.
She was reported as saying she had drawn “this disgusting” problem to the “relevant authorities”. But it seems to be persisting, to the extent, it seems, that just last Friday, acting Minister of Tourism, Irfaan Ali, was mixing his complaint against CAL’s fares between Guyana and T&T, and also to North America, with the  “discrimination and humiliation” claim.

Opportunity to meet
As reported yesterday, he told a media briefing on Friday there were two things that “are provoking me right now.” One, he said, was that Guyanese still have to come off the aircraft at Piarco, and re-check before re-boarding the aircraft for their homeward-bound destination.
In the Minister’s thinking, the Guyana Government “will not tolerate this nonsense any longer; it is absolutely  ridiculous…”
Well, before any deterioration in normally good relations between T&T and  Guyana, may be the time has come for more than an urgent meeting at ministerial level on the way forward between their Heads of Government—President Donald Ramotar and Prime Minister Persad-Bissessar.
In less than two weeks, the opportunity will present itself at the CARICOM Summit in Port-of-Spain. That’s  when much wider and pressing issues involving regional air transportation deserve to be seriously discussed with a view to announcing some new and, hopefully, creative initiatives. For the benefit of the people of our Community.