00:00We'll continue to be super committed to the Caribbean and we'll look at opportunities to
00:04grow as much as we can and as possible and we continue to work with many fine men and
00:08women around the table here today in the room that give us the opportunity to grow.
00:14Jose Preg, the Vice President International Operations for American Airlines, speaking
00:20at the Airline Leader Summit which was jointly hosted by the Center for Aviation or CAPA
00:26and the Airports Authority of Trinidad and Tobago. The Airline Leader Summit
00:30took place at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Port of Spain. The reality is there is no bigger ambassador
00:36of the iconic American brand that aren't team members and we're very very proud of course to
00:41your point about here in Port of Spain we have over 440 American Airlines employees about 20
00:46minutes away from here in an office that is serving the globe and frankly they're taking
00:51calls from all parts of the world we follow the sun when it comes to reservations and contact
00:56centers and the American Airlines executive also highlighted the importance of airport
01:02infrastructure such as runways where increasing airline traffic to the Caribbean in general is
01:09concerned. To your point of the Caribbean this winter we're going to grow almost five percent
01:13when it comes to seats six percent on departures we again you know it was talked about earlier the
01:20demand for the Caribbean is still there and now that you know some of the some of the countries
01:25in the Caribbean and the islands are actually investing in some of these runways that are
01:28allowing us to land in some places that before we couldn't. However challenges getting to and
01:33from destinations within the region were also acknowledged. Energy Minister Stuart Young spoke
01:39about that as he referenced his trips to Venezuela on Copa Airlines to conduct negotiations for the
01:46drug and gas deal. I had to get to the airport in Trinidad before midnight I had to wait to board a
01:53plane at 2 a.m to fly to Panama sit down in the airport in Panama which is Copa's hub to then fly
02:01back down to Caracas from the time I board the plane at Piaco to when I disembark in Caracas
02:08nine hours for an hour and a half flight from Port of Spain to Caracas and that is where you
02:18have to provide solutions there are routes there that make sense.
02:23The energy minister's concern was acknowledged during a panel discussion which examined the
02:28barriers to easier air travel within Latin America and the Caribbean. One of those big
02:33barriers that we have right now and it was highlighted today by by the minister and and I
02:38think a couple of the panelists is the connectivity. Such barriers were identified as being in control
02:45of the airlines while some are not. Many of them are artificially created by the industry by the
02:52governments but some regulators and that's the area where we want to concentrate a little bit
02:59today in terms of how can we solve these things. The airline leaders summit began on Thursday
03:05and ended on Friday. Jule Brown TV6 News
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