Tourism Minister Denise Charles has defended recent statements that involved the expansion of the island’s current airport, the Douglas-Charles Airport. Speaking at the Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association’s (CHTA) Caribbean Travel Marketplace in Barbados recently, Charles said the move would hopefully attract new carriers to Dominica.
Charles was since then, been heavily criticized by some members of the public who expressed that extending the runway would be a waste of money because the Dominica government is already in the process of building an international airport. A one billion dollar contract between the Government of Dominica and Montreal Management Consultant Establishment (MMCE) was signed, on June 9, 2021, signaling the official commencement of the construction of the highly anticipated international airport.
“The thing [is] that we have learnt, and that is from the St Vincent experience,” she explained. “Building an international airport does not mean new aircrafts will start landing in Dominica.”
Charles continued, “The key thing in the industry is building relationships.”
According to her, because the international airport project has started, “one of the key things we decided to do in parallel is route development”.
“So we have been attending route conferences, and in discussing with airline partners we realized that there are little things we can do right now that will increase the safety of our airport and probably attract more airline partners,” Charles noted.
Meantime, she revealed that following discussions with American Airlines, they recommended some improvements to the Douglas-Charles Airport.
“So in discussions with them they recommended some improvements that we could do at Douglas-Charles to make it safer for them to land which include extending the runway and grooving of the runway,” Charles explained. “So we have decided to embark on that project to sustain the current non-stop service we have from American Airlines and also to see if we can attract other airlines to the destination.”
She explained that American Airlines which started operations last year moved from two flights to three and, at present, seven flights. CHTA’s Caribbean Travel Marketplace is the Caribbean’s largest and most important marketing event. It affords tourism suppliers the opportunity to meet face-to-face with wholesalers from around the world selling Caribbean vacation travel over the course of two days of business meetings.
The 41st edition of the event took place at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre in Barbados from May 9 to 11, 2023.