by Global News Staff
St. Lucia – St Lucia’s Tourism Minister Allen Chastanet has called for a probe into the conduct of the East Caribbean Civil Aviation Authority (ECCAA) in dealing with attempts by CARICOM Airways to get permission to operate a passenger service into the sub-region.
Allan Chastanet - St Lucia Min Tourism
According to a CMC report, Chastanet has been battling with the Authority over an air-operating certificate to allow the carrier to fly to routes into the sub-region.
“I am going to be requesting for an investigation to be carried out into the Eastern Caribbean Civil Aviation Authority’s handling of the CARICOM Airways matter, as I am convinced that every effort has been made to ensure that the carrier does not take to the skies in direct competition with other regional carriers,” he said.
The issue has already sparked a row with Vincentian authoritative and in December 2010 the Castries-based airline, which carries an air operating licence from Suriname was grounded by ECCAA, which claimed that it was operating illegally within the Caribbean.
Chastanet told CMC that there is a misconception about the role of the ECCAA in the regional civil aviation sector.
“The ECCAA is a functional cooperation agency, meaning that the sub-regional governments share payment of the staff, but the individual report of each country is done separately, so they are the Civil Aviation Authority for St Lucia as well as the Civil Aviation Authority for St Vincent, so they are Civil Aviation but they cannot speak as a regional body, Chastanet said.
“They are our Civil Aviation Authority and I have to tell you that I am extremely disappointed in the manner in which ECCAA has handled the situation, so we are going to be asking for an investigation in terms of how ECCAA has dealt with the matter. This has not been a way to do business,” the tourism minister stressed.
