London slams call for airfare increase
Tobago House of Assembly (THA) Chief Secretary Orville London has balked at the very thought of a fare increase on the domestic air-bridge in its present state of poor and unreliable service. He stopped just short of ruling it out altogether in the current situation. "I will have serious concerns about asking the public to pay for a fare increase in a service which they know has not been reliable and is unlikely to be reliable and predictable," London declared. He was responding to a Sunday Newsday query with respect to the recent call for the return airfare between Tobago and Trinidad to be increased from $200 to $496. The call was made by George Bell, manager of the problem-ridden domestic carrier Tobago Express. "It is difficult to market a fare increase to the public in an environment where the service is unreliable!" London asserted. "And therefore, even if you have a fare increase, whether that fare increase can be imposed on the people at this point in time is something that is very, very debatable," he argued. London, chairman of the Tourism Standing Committee (TSC), reported that the issue was raised at a meeting of the Committee on Wednesday. He said the consensus was that "under the present circumstances the airlift situation is not going to be resolved in a way that can really bring the benefits that we would like, and the predictability that we would like to the situation." In this regard, he said the Airlift Committee was mandated to "utilise any option that they consider feasible" in addressing the situation. London added, "All options are on the table, and we expect that they (Airlift Committee) will give us some direction as to the way forward; because every member of the Airlift Committee recognises that we have been grappling with this problem since the inception of the committee (several years ago) and we have a responsibility to come up with a solution that can deal with the situation." He declared, "It is highly unsatisfactory; it cannot be allowed to continue, and we have to come up with something that works, regardless of what the option might be!" The Airlift Committee is to submit its report at next month’s meeting of the TSC.
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"London slams call for airfare increase"