Renu­ka Singh

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has con­firmed that big air­lines have been us­ing strong-arm tac­tics to force Cari­com coun­tries to open their bor­ders or miss out on win­ter tourism.

In re­sponse to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia last week, the Amer­i­can Air­lines cor­po­rate of­fice in Hous­ton Texas con­firmed that at the re­quest of Cari­com, it met with on­ly two Caribbean is­lands to “dis­cuss the re-open­ing of bor­ders.”

So far, Bar­ba­dos and St Lu­cia have dis­cussed re-open­ing bor­ders to al­low Amer­i­can Air­lines flights.

While Row­ley did not re­spond to ques­tions sent by Guardian Me­dia on the is­sue on June 16, he ad­dressed the mat­ter dur­ing the COVID-19 up­date in To­ba­go over the week­end.

“The bor­ders re­main closed. That is what has kept us where we are. We will keep them closed as long as there is a health re­quire­ment,” Row­ley said.

“Out­side of us, the pan­dem­ic is rag­ing.”

Row­ley al­so con­firmed that he spoke with Cari­com heads of Gov­ern­ment about the re-open­ing of the bor­ders.

“A lot of pres­sure is on our Cari­com neigh­bours now to open their bor­ders un­der the un­der­stand­ing that if they don’t do it now, they won’t be able to do it for an­oth­er six months and they’d miss the win­ter sea­son, so you bet­ter get on board now. That is the kind of pres­sure my col­leagues are un­der,” he said.

“The air­lines are mak­ing that of­fer, if you want to get in on the win­ter trans­port, if things get bet­ter, you may find that you have no trans­port if your sys­tem gets bet­ter.”

He added, “But small coun­tries are al­ways un­der pres­sure. As you know, we are a small coun­try in this world and at the end of the day, no­body is look­ing out for us.”

Last week, af­ter re­gion­al re­ports sur­faced of Amer­i­can Air­lines try­ing to pres­sure some Caribbean coun­tries to re­open their bor­ders, Guardian Me­dia sent ques­tions to Amer­i­can Air­lines and was told the com­pa­ny was in­vit­ed by Cari­com to speak to two coun­tries.

“At the re­quest of Cari­com, we met with sev­er­al Bar­ba­dos and St Lu­cia Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials in­clud­ing Bar­ba­dos Prime Min­is­ter (Mia) Mot­t­ley and St Lu­cia Prime Min­is­ter (Al­lan) Chas­tanet to dis­cuss the re-open­ing of bor­ders,” the com­pa­ny rep­re­sen­ta­tive said yes­ter­day in re­sponse to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia.

The com­pa­ny said the meet­ing was fa­cil­i­tat­ed by the In­ter­na­tion­al Air Trans­port As­so­ci­a­tion.

“The In­ter­na­tion­al Air Trans­port As­so­ci­a­tion (IA­TA) host­ed a meet­ing with car­ri­ers that serve the re­gion and pre­sent­ed a plan that har­mo­nizes the re­quire­ments for re­sump­tion of ser­vice, not on­ly in the Caribbean but world­wide. We strong­ly sup­port this ap­proach,” Amer­i­can Air­lines said.

Ac­cord­ing to a re­port by 268to­day, An­tigua and Bar­bu­da Prime Min­is­ter Ga­s­tone Browne was quot­ed as say­ing that Amer­i­can Air­lines read the “ri­ot act” to the Caribbean coun­tries and that some is­lands were told to pro­vide a firm re­open­ing date or they would be left out of the air­line’s ros­ter un­til No­vem­ber.

Ac­cord­ing to the ar­ti­cle, while Browne did not say whether An­tigua and Bar­bu­da was among the is­lands that ac­qui­esced, the is­land’s air­port re­opened on June 1 and its first in­ter­na­tion­al flight was an AA flight from Mi­a­mi three days lat­er.

Amer­i­can Air­lines said the com­pa­ny has “a long and proud his­to­ry in the Caribbean” with an over 50-year his­to­ry in the Caribbean.

Be­fore the CCVID-19 lock­down, Amer­i­can had as many as 108 dai­ly flights to 38 des­ti­na­tions in the Caribbean, the Ba­hamas and Bermu­da.

“Our air­line and our team mem­bers take pride in the work they do, as they un­der­stand that avi­a­tion plays an im­por­tant role, not on­ly con­nect­ing fam­i­lies and loved ones and help­ing trans­port crit­i­cal goods, but we al­so play a vi­tal role in sup­port­ing tourism, a ma­jor eco­nom­ic en­gine for the re­gion,” it said.

The com­pa­ny said that as trav­el re­stric­tions went in­to place due to the coro­n­avirus (COVID-19) pan­dem­ic, it con­tin­ued to fly to St Thomas, St Croix and San Juan.

“Most re­cent­ly re­sumed op­er­a­tions in An­tigua and Ja­maica,” the air­line said.

Amer­i­can Air­lines said while it on­ly met with two Caribbean lead­ers, it is ea­ger to re­sume flights to the en­tire Caribbean.

“We look for­ward to con­tin­u­ing to re­sume our op­er­a­tions in the Caribbean in the com­ing months,” Amer­i­can said.

Ac­cord­ing to the air­line’s web­site, Amer­i­can Air­lines had 108 dai­ly flights to 38 des­ti­na­tions in the Caribbean, the Ba­hamas and Bermu­da.

Yes­ter­day, an­oth­er large air­line an­nounced the be­gin­ning of flights in­to the Caribbean. Lon­don-based Vir­gin At­lantic said it was ex­pect­ed to be­gin fly­ing in­to To­ba­go by Oc­to­ber. (See page 15)

Guardian Me­dia re­quest­ed more in­for­ma­tion from Vir­gin At­lantic about whether there was any dis­cus­sion on the Oc­to­ber bor­der open­ing with the T&T Gov­ern­ment and though it did not di­rect­ly an­swer the ques­tion, it said the com­pa­ny was con­tin­u­al­ly re­view­ing its flight pro­gramme.

“As a re­sult, we are plan­ning to restart our To­ba­go flights in Oc­to­ber 2020,” it said.