(Trinidad Guardian) It is not possible to get to the Bahamas from T&T much more quickly with the introduction of new flight schedules, Caribbean Airlines (CAL) CEO, Michael DiLollo said yesterday.
“This is a flight that goes through Kingston, Jamaica onwards to Nassau and it does so strategically three times a week allowing for the business community as well as the leisure community going into the Bahamas. We have configured the schedule such that we have a Wednesday, a Friday and a Sunday flight at proper times in the morning and returning in the evening,” he said.
DiLollo, spoke to the media yesterday at the CAL Business Class Lounge, Piarco International Airport as CAL’s Flight BW 414 departed Piarco for the Bahamas to officially launch its increase service between the two countries.
He said before the flight had to go to Miami, then to the Bahamas which was an inconvenience and a loss of money for the business community.
“People said it took them an entire day to get to the destination. People missed their business day, which is valuable to the community here in T&T, Jamaica and the greater Caricom. Business people cannot have an entire day of travel for a short stay’s length in terms of distance from place to place.
“An entire day would be something people would invest in going to Europe or Asia but certainly not within Caricom. That pain point we have taken very seriously,” he said.
DiLollo said officials of the airline are working on creating new schedules for the rest of the region.
“Already we have modified our schedule for Grenada. We have put in a flight that is daily. Piarco is a very important hub not only for the greater Caribbean but internationally. This means we are looking at increasing the capacity to do walk on and walk off service so the passenger that arrives to connect can do so in a relatively seamless manner,” he said.
Asked about the impact of lower fuel prices on CAL, he said airlines in general around the world are happy to benefit as “it allows us to compete more effectively, to stimulate demand, to lower pricing and we see that in the market. We see companies that are slowly filtering that stimulation into the prices of their tickets.”
However, he said, what makes CAL situation somewhat different is that the main shareholder, the T&T government, depends on energy as its main source of income.
“There is the interesting position in T&T where our shareholder is an oil and gas based economy and we are very mindful that our shareholder is having a tougher time these days. We are reacting to that in cutting costs and reducing wastage and doing everything we can to be a responsible state run enterprise to ensure that we proactively adjusting ourselves for that reality,” he said.
