A new multi-million dollar modern airport terminal is being considered for Tobago, Chief Secretary Orville London said last Wednesday (July 13).

He disclosed that the Airports Authority of Trinidad and Tobago made a presentation of the project on Tuesday (July 12) to the Tobago House of Assembly (THA).

London said the Assembly’s representative on the AATT board is Joseph Granville who has been working assiduously to put things together, adding that it is what is being described as a very ambitious proposal.

London said he wants to put the people of Tobago on notice that there will not be a new airport terminal except there are significant changes in the physical infrastructure to facilitate it and in order to have the kind of a modern terminal with the capacity for an increase in passengers for the year that would move from one million annually to about 3.5 million people.

“In order to do that you are going to have the kind of terminal and support structures that will guarantee that this thing will be done with a certain degree of professionalism making sure you meet international standards,” London said.

“Therefore there is going to be some disruption, there will be some physical changes, but we will keep the public of Tobago informed as we go along,” London said.

London said the proposal has met with “a certain degree of consensus” from the Assembly and will now go to the Airports Authority’s board and, the Ministry and subject to further discussion before it is presented to the public for comment.

The Chief Secretary said: “If we are doing this we have to do it in a kind of way that it meets with international standards and also meets with the needs of Tobago.

“(We have) gone past the stage where an airport is where people embark and disembark. It is now a business center and a hub of other activities; it is a whole different concept requiring a significant amount of space, and if one recognises what has happened at Crown Point, which is a whole built up area.”

London said “hard decisions” will have to be made to find the space to expand the airport to the kind of modern facility that is required. “To find empty space in that area hard decisions would have to be made so I want to put the public of Tobago on alert that hard decisions would have to be made if we are to achieve our objective,” London added.