00:00Sunday marked the inaugural flight from Toronto, Canada to Tobago.
00:06This is a weekly flight to the A&R Robinson International Airport.
00:11Passengers who disembarked the flight were greeted by Chief Secretary Fali Augustin,
00:17Minister of Civil Aviation Eli Zakour, Tourism Secretary Zareisha Hackett and other officials.
00:23Some passengers spoke with TV6 News.
00:26How do you feel?
00:27Oh, great. Wonderful.
00:30The excitement just started.
00:33Beautiful. Nice landing.
00:35I like what I've seen and we're inside.
00:38Good. Great. I'm happy to be here.
00:41How was the flight?
00:42The flight was amazing.
00:44Is this your first time coming to Tobago?
00:46Nope.
00:47Nope. I come all the time.
00:49It was very nice to have an opportunity to come straight to Tobago.
00:53But I do have family back home, so it's always nice to do that too.
00:56But it's really nice to be able to come straight from Canada right here.
01:00And is this your first experience with Tobago Carnival?
01:03Yes, it is. I only done Trinidad Carnival.
01:05You're playing in a band?
01:06Yeah, Fog Angels.
01:07Chief Secretary Farley Augustine told TV6 News the flight is an important one for Tobago and has potential for larger
01:16opportunities.
01:17When we look at the data, we saw in terms of searches on our website and through our marketing agencies,
01:26we saw an increase of over 40,000 people in Montreal alone searching for ways to get to Tobago.
01:33So we needed this really to find an avenue to have a direct flight to Tobago.
01:38Minister of Civil Aviation Eli Zakour was also on hand during the flight arrival.
01:45How do you feel about the inaugural flight?
01:47No, they're great. We have been working on it for some time, as I mentioned. So we're very excited.
01:52How many passengers disembarked?
01:5461 passengers disembarked and the others will be going to Trinidad.
01:581.5 million dollars has been budgeted for marketing of the Canada flight operations, according to Tourism Secretary Zorisha Hackett.
02:07We've not exhausted all of it yet. So we plan to, you know, push the marketing campaign over the next
02:13six months or so.
02:14And the plan is to go more in the leisure market.
02:17And because, you know, it's diaspora based right now, what we're seeing is people who have routes to Tobago coming
02:23back.
02:23But what we ultimately want is leisure markets.
02:25Canadians who've never visited, they're hearing about Tobago and they want to come here.
02:30So bigger than, you know, our diaspora coming back home, we want to enter into that leisure market.
02:35So aggressive marketing needs to happen.
02:37The flight serves as a jump start to this weekend's Tobago October Carnival.
02:43We look forward to more successful flights coming out of this new route, YYZ tab.
02:48And again, because we're jump starting Carnival Week, we know this East Terminal is going to be super busy for
02:55the next couple of days.
02:56And so, again, full display of Tobago culture, Tobago experience, again, is what we expect for all our passengers to
03:04have from the time they touch down here.
03:06And so I'm very, very delighted.
03:07Elizabeth Williams, TV6 News.
03:09And so, again, we'll see you next time.
