GEORGETOWN, Guyana – The news that our Minister of Tourism, Irfaan Ali is engaging his Trinidadian counterpart about the unilateral, dramatic increase of airfares by Caribbean Airlines Limited (CAL) from Guyana is welcome. Even more welcome would be news that the talks have resulted in the reduction of those fares to more tolerable levels as has prevailed earlier this year. In several cases, for instance to New York and Trinidad, the fares have almost doubled.
The utterances of CAL’s communications head Clint Williams on the issue, when solicited by this newspaper, do not address the fundamental question – which has to do with prices. For him to suggest that flights must be booked almost a year in advance to obtain lower fares is to ignore not only human nature but also human practicality. Only a tiny sliver of humanity are so disciplined to make their travel plans so early in advance.
His remarks about “destinations” being a variable are also irrelevant: the destinations being questioned invariably generate flights that are filled to capacity. What is happening is that CAL is taking advantage of its monopoly position in our air transportation sector now that Delta Airlines has decamped and EZjet folded for reasons that had nothing to do with profitability. Delta also could not complain about empty seats.