AIRTOURS is considering legal action to protect its reputation after being accused of extortion by Air Jamaica.
The threat comes following comments made by Airtours Holidays managing director Chris Mottershead in a speech at the Caribbean Tourism Organisation Conference in Santo Domingo.
Mottershead said the operator was concerned increases in scheduled airline capacity to Jamaica could hit charter business.
He urged the different governments to take this into account when considering future applications for charters.
Air Jamaica’s vice-president marketing and sales Allen Chastanet said: “Airtours speech at the CTO conference is just the latest example of the bullying tactics it employs to intimidate competition.
“This is extortion. Airtours acts like a leech in the marketplace and is only interested in building products where it can monopolise the market for a time and then, by its own admission, desert the market when the monopoly cannot be maintained.”