CASTRIES, the capital of St Lucia, lies 2,838 kilometres east of Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras; a distance that could be covered in about four-and-a-half hours by commercial jet aircraft.

But using currently available air services, the trip takes 12 hours, with intermediate stops in San Juan, Miami and San Pedro Sula.

That's about the same time it takes to fly from Castries to London, well over twice as far away. And the round trip to Honduras will cost the St. Lucian traveller US$1,600, compared to $980 for the London trip.

In other instances of intra-regional travel within the Greater Caribbean, it is necessary to overnight in an intermediate stop, with the extra costs of hotel accommodation and in time spent en route.

There are 47 major airports in the 28 members and associate members of the ACS. A 1998 study showed that no ACS member serves even one-third of these airports with direct daily scheduled services.

Barbados, which serves the most, has direct daily service with 15 (28 per cent) almost all within the CARICOM region. Panama had with 12, and Antigua and Guatemala with 10 each, mostly also within their respective sub-regions.

Notably, there is no direct daily service between the Eastern Caribbean and Central American sub-regions.

The problem of air transport is now being recognised as one of the major obstacles to the growth of intra-regional trade and investment.

For instance, improved services are evidently needed to take advantage of new trade agreements that cross sub-regional barriers, such as those between CARICOM and Venezuela, Colombia, the Dominican Republic and Cuba. The same applies to the development of intra-regional and multi-destination tourism, key elements in the market and product diversification of the industry.

The problem can only be successfully addressed by the joint efforts of governments and the private sector.

For governments, the issue of legal agreement on air traffic "freedom rights" is fundamental. In the past, governments have negotiated such agreements bilaterally and on the basis of reciprocity.

But the majority of ACS countries have not concluded bilateral agreements with one another. And existing bilateral agreements tend to limit the "5th Freedom Rights" of the airlines of the participating Parties - the rights to traffic with third countries.

Capacity restrictions on services provided are also common.

The reality is that the servicing of intra-Caribbean routes by regional airlines not based in the origin or destination country is either prohibited or allowed only as a result of case-by-case negotiation.

One perverse result is that Miami has become the regional hub, and American Airlines the regional carrier, for the countries of the Greater Caribbean.

Clearly what is needed is a collective approach, embodied in a multilateral agreement, based on the principle of treating regional airlines as the equivalent of national airlines in the operation of intra-Caribbean routes.

This is the thinking that underlies the proposed ACS Air Transport Agreement now in its final stages of negotiation.

The early conclusion of this agreement was mandated by 3rd ACS Summit in December 2001.

But some hard political decisions and tough negotiations will be involved, as the current regime of bilateral agreements benefits the larger established regional airlines and some governments are reluctant to negotiate away the rights to lucrative routes in the form of a multilateral instrument.