International charter flights will offer airlift services between the Argyle International Airport out of North America, for Vincy Mas 2017.
The disclosure was made by the head of the Tourism Authority, Glen Beache, at a town hall meeting in Toronto, Canada, Friday 31st March.
“There will be charter flights for the Carnival Season, I can guarantee you that”.
Beache said the charters will be on hand adding that they are hoping to make announcements in the next two weeks as to when the charters will leave North America. “More than likely the charters will be for two weeks around the carnival period”.
Beache noted that they will also be looking at charters around the ending of October through the beginning of November, starting with flights once per week until after the Christmas holidays.
The head of the Tourism Authority said the charter flights will not only be for the diaspora but also for the leisure traveller since it would be the beginning of the tourist season.
He also sought to defuse any possible criticism about the lack of regular international flights operating at AIA. “Now before some of those journalist who are trolling Facebook say this means they have no chance of getting regular schedule flights, that is not what am saying”.
“ let me say we have to be prepared for anything, the airlines deal with the forecast, but in case that does not work out you will be having the charters”.
Meanwhile, the Tourism Director says there will be no international charter flights into the AIA for the Easter Holidays. “I can tell you we have check with Transat, Sunwing, Air Canada and West Jet, every single airline is booked solid”, Beache disclosed.
He pointed out that securing a charter flight from a regularly scheduled airline will cost far more, since the aircraft being chartered would have to be taken off the scheduled route. “In order to get Sunwing or Transat, we would have had to book them since last October” Beache noted.
Beache further admitted that he knows how important it is for persons to get the direct flight into St Vincent and they are putting all their energies into doing so.
The Tourism Director was among other speakers who addressed the Toronto meeting, mainly to look at events taking place for Vincy Mas 2017.
