New airlines make local inroads Trinidad Guardian Newcomers to the airline industry in Trinidad and Tobago, Avior Airlines and Universal Airlines, have multiplied their number of flights and destinations. Avior, which is Venezuela-based, plans to begin a service to Maturin and increase its flights to Margarita to four a week from April 1. Universal will beef up its New York, Port-of-Spain and Guyana flights to twice weekly from April 7. With the entry of Universal and now Avior, the local industry appears to be heading for a rebound, after the September 11 attacks caused a slowdown in air travel. The Canada-based Universal, made its inaugural flight between Port-of-Spain and Guyana in December, 2001. Avior began its local operations on January 31. An unknown airline, Avior intends to make inroads on the market with flights between Trinidad and Venezuela, it announced in a statement. The carrier will operate three new flights to Maturin on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. It four flights to Porlamar, Margarita will now depart on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays. Passengers can also fly directly to 20 destinations within Venezuela. While Avior operates flights between Trinidad and its closest neighbour, Universal will provide an international service from New York. Universal's flights to Georgetown, will be on Thursdays and Sundays. Universal operates 767-300 aircraft which seats 243 passengers, while Avior, on a smaller scale, uses Beachcrafts that accommodates 19 passengers. The move to Trinidad is part of Avior's strategy to expand regionally. Currently, it flies to Grenada, and St Vincent out of Venezuela. Universal intends to expand its services between Berbice and Paramaribo, Suriname to compliment the flights to New York and Guyana, out of Trinidad. With the introduction of Universal in December, BWIA stated then that they welcomed the competition. A spokesperson for BWIA said that talks between the company and the Guyanese government, for the airline to become the country's national carrier is still underway. The owner of Roger's Trinbago Site: Roj (Roger James) *************************************************** escape email mailto:ejames@escape.ca yahoo email: mailto:triniroj@yahoo.com Trinbago site: http://www.tntisland.com CBSC Group on Yahoo: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/caribsocabrass CBSC Website http://www.tntisland.com/caribbeansocabrassconnection/ ******************************************************* Steel Expressions Orch http://www.escape.ca/~ejames/se/ email #1: mailto:steelexpressions@yahoo.com email #2: mailto:steelexpressions@home.com ******************************************************* The Trinbago Site of the Week: (TCL) http://www.tclgroup.com/ (TCL Group of Companies) courtesy of Roj Trinbago Website & TnT Web Directory Roj's Trinbago Website: http://www.tntisland.com TnT Web Directory: http://195.224.187.36/ *********************************************************