PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad (CMC) — Trinidad and Tobago aviation officials on Tuesday brushed aside allegations by a senior Barbados government minister that Port of Spain owes its Caribbean Community (Caricom) neighbour “a sizeable sum of money” in navigation fees.

“A country can only charge an airline for flying over its sovereign airspace to provide a service and they do not provide a service. We provide the service…only at a flight level of 24,500 feet and above,” said the Director General of Civil Aviation Trinidad and Tobago, Ramesh Lutchmedial.

Speaking on

CITADEL Radio here, Lutchmedial said below that level is what is called “the terminal area and Barbados has a terminal area, it does not charge the airlines for flying into their terminal area and neither do we charge the airlines for flying into Barbados’ terminal area.

“So we really (do not owe) Barbados and the other OECS (Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States) countries, we don’t owe them any money,” he told radio listeners.

Barbados Minister of Tourism and International Transport, Richard Sealy Tuesday told legislators in his country that Port of Spain has been collecting “millions of dollars” in fees for aircraft coming into the Grantley Adams International Airport (GAIA) and is demanding payment.

Piloting the Civil Aviation (Amendment) Bill, 2016, Sealy did not reveal exactly how much was owed to Bridgetown, but he argued that “a sizeable sum of money” was due, while suggesting that the continued non-payment amounted to a major oversight on the part of the Trinidad and Tobago Civil Aviation authorities that should be settled as soon as possible.

He said that an agreement had been reached for the appropriate sharing by Port of Spain of the navigation fees collected with the territories in the Eastern Caribbean. However, Sealy told Parliament that the arrangement had not been honoured by Port of Spain even though he said GAIA was busier than Piarco with over 30,000 landings and take-offs a year.

But Lutchmedial said while there was an agreement, the Barbadians are being misled.

“Most of the revenue that we collect …95 per cent of it is for flights that fly in international airspace that is not over the sovereign territory of any country. That is why I said our airspace is 750 thousand square miles and when you look at the size of Grenada or Barbados, (and) the area of those countries, you will understand what I am talking about.”

Sealy said that the issue had recently been elevated to the level of the Caricom Heads of Government, who are scheduled to meet in Guyana next week for their annual summit.