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The To­ba­go Di­vi­sion of the Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce has voiced strong op­po­si­tion to any move to re­move the sub­sidy for the Caribbean Air­lines air­bridge be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Speak­ing on CNC3’s The Morn­ing Brew pro­gramme yes­ter­day, cham­ber pres­i­dent Cur­tis Williams said the or­gan­i­sa­tion is aware of on­go­ing dis­cus­sions aimed at im­prov­ing the air­line’s prof­itabil­i­ty, in­clud­ing the pos­si­ble re­moval of the sub­sidy. How­ev­er, he main­tained that the cham­ber does not sup­port such a move at this time.

Williams de­scribed the air­bridge as a crit­i­cal life­line, sup­port­ing tourism, busi­ness trav­el and ac­cess to es­sen­tial ser­vices. He said fre­quent trav­el be­tween the is­lands is a ne­ces­si­ty for fam­i­lies and busi­ness­es, and should be treat­ed as a pub­lic trans­porta­tion ser­vice rather than a pure­ly com­mer­cial ven­ture.