CAL: Easier passage to India coming

(Trinidad Express) A simpler passage to India from Trinidad and Tobago is one step closer to becoming a reality.

State-owned Caribbean Airlines chairman Rabindra Moonan and acting chief executive Robert Corbie recently returned from a trip to India, where they had held high level talks with Air India and India’s Transport Ministry and Civil Aviation officials to discuss deepening air links between the two countries, Caribbean Airlines said in a release yesterday.

Moonan said the meetings had “facilitated an acceleration of the process by which travellers will be able to link, via key destinations like New York and London, directly to India and the rest of Asia.”

Deepak Brara, board member and commercial director at Air India, welcomed the visit and indicated very positively that both Air India and Caribbean Airlines should co-ordinate to have technical teams meet within a time frame of 30-60 days to complete a Special Prorate Agreement (SPA), and then a Code-Share Agreement as the pathway to opening the subcontinent to the Caribbean, CAL said.

India’s government gave the assurance of seeing the initiative progress successfully, CAL said.

The code-share initiative followed an official visit to India by the Prime Minister in 2011 and the signing of the Bilateral Agreement between the Governments of Trinidad and Tobago and India.

Caribbean Airlines also announced that its newest brand ambassador will be cricket legend Brian Charles Lara, who will be promoting the brand to his millions of fans worldwide.

At a recent photo shoot on board the Caribbean Airlines wide-body Boeing 767-300ER aircraft, Lara shared that he was “excited to officially endorse the brand”, CAL said in a release.

“CAL is the best carrier in the region and provides a world class experience,” Lara said.