Cost of air travel in region needs addressing, says Dominica PM
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| Published on Thursday, May 31, 2007 |
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ROSEAU, Dominica: Dominica’s Prime Minister and new Chairman of the OECS Authority, Roosevelt Skerrit has called for the matter of the cost of air travel within the region to be addressed as a “matter of urgency”.
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Prime Minister of Dominica,
Roosevelt Skerrit.
AFP PHOTO |
The Prime Minister made the remarks at the opening of the 45th Meeting of the OECS Authority in Grenada on Wednesday.
The Dominican leader stated that for the OECS integration process to deepen “we need to be able to travel within the OECS and CARICOM with the greatest of ease, as, and when we need to, more often than we have become accustomed to, and at the cheapest possible cost”.
“As it stands, travel within the OECS and the Caribbean is no easier or more reliable than it used to be five years ago. Indeed, it has become more expensive, given the creation of the virtual monopoly in regional air travel and the consequential sharp increase in the cost of air fares,” Prime Minister Skerrit said.
Skerrit issued a call to the political and business leaders of the OECS to “sit around the table as a matter of urgency, to hammer out an acceptable, commercially viable solution to this most grave and potentially crippling situation of prohibitively high fares within the region”.
According to Skerrit, the issue of competition and regulation of air transportation within a short to medium-term framework should be addressed through the establishment of a sub-regional policy on air transportation, consistent with a wider CARICOM policy.
Given the increased cost in air travel within the region, the Prime Minister called for the implementation of a practical strategy for greater productive use of maritime space in the OECS for both passenger and freight transportation.
“Within this context we must set the stage for the emergence of new private sector driven sea transportation options that are economical and reliable,” Skerrit concluded. | | | | Reads : 314 | | | |
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