My last Tobago experience was a BWIA mainline flight on a 737-800 back and forth. Prior to that, I'd travelled Air Caribbean's shuttle service (hourly.) Tobago Express is a different experience, and in many cases they do it right, many wrong. - Single Dash 8 aircraft BAD. A single mechanical delay can blow an entire day. BWIA, BWIA Express, LIAT don't have the capacity to pick up the slack. One day while I was there picking someone up, TE refused to put pax on a partially empty BWIA Express flight. - Single 8x11" seat map and handwritten boarding passes Remember the days of seat selection stickers and a single seat map at the check-in desk? Still in existence, except this time they rely on the legibility of the writing of the agents. - Reservations This sucks. TE won't interline bags, and reservations have to be made over the phone or at a TE agent's desk. You can't book a flight through to Tobago (except on BWIA Express and LIAT which don't fly that often) so you have to haul yourself over to new check-in counters and get hastily scrawled boarding passes. Oh well, not much to complain about a 20 minute flight. Matthew ____________________________________________ -----Original Message----- From: The Airline List [mailto:AIRLINE@LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU] On Behalf Of Roger James Sent: January 21, 2002 10:09 PM To: AIRLINE@LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU Subject: Tobago Express spared layoffs Tobago Express spared layoffs By Sharon Lym (Trinidad Guardian) Tobago Express will not be affected by the impending layoffs at BWIA West Indies Airways, president of the airline Conrad Aleong said yesterday. Aleong explained Tobago Express would not be affected because it is a separate company from BWIA with separate shareholders. "Thank God for Tobago Express, which is a much lower cost operation," he said. Aleong said although Tobago Express still incurred losses from start-up costs, it is cheaper to maintain and is, therefore, a more viable route. Tobago Express begun operations in June, 2001.