IATA calls for transparency as Antigua & Barbuda prepares to increase passenger tax

The In­ter­na­tion­al Air Trans­port As­so­ci­a­tion (IA­TA) is call­ing on the An­tigua & Bar­bu­da gov­ern­ment to clar­i­fy a pro­posed plan to raise air pas­sen­ger tax­es for in­ter­na­tion­al trav­ellers. On June 24, the Gas­ton Browne-led ad­min­is­tra­tion ap­proved a US$10 in­crease in the Pas­sen­ger Head Tax for all in­ter­na­tion­al pas­sen­gers ar­riv­ing in and de­part­ing An­tigua & Bar­bu­da, in­creas­ing the tax from US$40 to US$50 per pas­sen­ger (one way). Trav­el with­in the CARI­COM re­gion will be ex­empt from this pro­posed in­crease.

IA­TA is now push­ing back against that de­ci­sion, warn­ing that it could have a neg­a­tive im­pact on the coun­try's pas­sen­ger traf­fic, long-term air con­nec­tiv­i­ty, and com­pet­i­tive­ness in the re­gion. Ac­cord­ing to IA­TA da­ta, An­tigua and Bar­bu­da's pas­sen­ger traf­fic is al­ready down by 2.6% dur­ing the first half of 2026 com­pared with the same pe­ri­od in 2025.

IA­TA, a trade as­so­ci­a­tion rep­re­sent­ing over 370 air­lines, al­so called for trans­paren­cy in how the rev­enue from this high­er tax would be al­lo­cat­ed. Ac­cord­ing to a June 24 Cab­i­net note, the ad­di­tion­al rev­enue would be used to, among oth­er things, meet the coun­try's fi­nan­cial oblig­a­tions to the East­ern Caribbean Civ­il Avi­a­tion Au­thor­i­ty (EC­CAA) and the East­ern Caribbean Supreme Court (EC­SC). An­tigua and Bar­bu­da would be the on­ly coun­try im­ple­ment­ing this $10 in­crease, as pro­pos­als cur­rent­ly on the ta­ble call for a $2.50 con­tri­bu­tion from in­com­ing and out­go­ing pas­sen­gers to be al­lo­cat­ed to EC­CAA.