T&T: Time to get rid of BWEE

The thousands of people who travel during the August vacation ought to brace themselves for higher than usual airline prices as carriers raise their prices in an effort to offset sky-rocketing fuel costs, and with projections that loads will, for the first time, exceed those of pre-9/11.

It is already almost impossible to purchase a 30-day return ticket on the regular commercial airlines flying between Trinidad and Tobago and North America for less than $3,000, and the prices will keep on going up.

Highly-placed sources at BWIA say the airline will have little choice but to increase the cost of its tickets and it is expected that one would have to fork out between $3,500 and $4,000 to travel this vacation period.

The source said: "As you are aware, it is customary for us to increase prices during the North American summer period because it is the busiest travel period and a crucial time for us to make some money to offset the low periods. But this time around, the prices will be higher."

The source says BWIA is "bleeding" because of the high fuel costs and something had to be done less the gains of the summer period are lost to the oil companies.

High fuel costs? BWIA is the state-owned airline in a country in which the gas and petroleum industries are partially state-owned. After decades of artificially high airline prices, now BWEE is planning to soak the airlines even more?