I dont know the opcost of hovercraft. but they (SRN-4) were phased out of UK channel (Dover-Calais, about 50km) operations in 2000, replaced by SeaCats; economics was cited as the reason A small hoverferry between Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight, a distance of about 25km, costs £26.00 return. It claims to be the only commercial hovercraft service still running in Europe and is popular with enthusiasts..
Ref "No traffic 0300-0500", nobody wants to travel at that time. Try the same trip at 0730 or 1700. That is also the reason CAL is hobbled with high costs-the public want to travel out between 0700 and 1100 and arrive back 1700 to 2000. Bunching=high staff cost and low productivity. (Actual, bunching has been improved these days)
Ref no bus service. If they cant organise "a simple bus service" according to Scotty Crusoe, what hope is there for air or sea service.
I suspect that if the return fare to Tobago was TT$600 or TT$700 there would be people who could make a go of it, both airline and sea-line. But who would pay?

The answer to all the suggestions is...........surprise!!!.........cost.
And who pays.
There is no cheap way to fly an aircraft. Someone has to pay; either customer, taxpayer/govt, or some combination of these.
Modern technology has caused the convergence of operating costs for similar aircraft, so that most manufacturers are within a few percentage points of each other. Currency fluctuations and financing packages may give a temporary advantage to one or another, but the others quickly find ways to even the playing field.
If someone were willing to pay for it, to my mind , a helicopter service using something like civilian Chinook from P-O-S to Scarborough would be most attractive. But it would be expensive.
Other options might be develop P-O-S municipal, and San Fernando Municipal, and fly from both to TAB. Carefully planned, this would eliminate a lot of traffic on the roads to Piarco, and develop the area to the south of the Beetham ( and hopefully move the dump out into the Gulf of Paria).
Storage, parking, and light manufacturing would help pay the costs of "P-O-S municipal" and provide employment in the Beetham Sea Lots area.
But this would need imagination and finance, neither of which are in great evidence.
Hovercraft are nice, but more expensive than conventional ships on a per passenger basis. The current fast ferries are about the most practical compromise of speed and cheapness, but might need more efficient management in upkeep and planning..
In this case "you makes your choice and you pays your money"

The Dash 8 is not designed for sectors under 100 miles. It can do them, but at a cost. Operating a short haul airline in the Caribbean is not childs play. Ask CaribAir, American Eagle, Carib Star, Caribbean Sun, Caribbean Express, RedJet etc,etc.
On foreign experts:
Going back to the 1950s when BOAC owned BWIA
1950s
R.Hilary and others from BOAC.
Since 1960s
TWA/RW Presspritch team to re-organiseBWIA: Frank Lorenzo (Texas Intl, Eastern).
Galway (?)
Mitchell (?)
Lucian Hunt AmericanAirlines, American Flyers
Svanberg from SAS
Greenberg from god knows where
Aleong (local, doesnt count!) Air Canada(?)
Ed Acker (PanAm)
Ed Wegel (?)
Giles Filliatreau (?)
Peter Davies (Sabena)
And several more whose names I forget
And many of these men travelled with their side-kicks to advise them on Mtce, Finance ,Reservations, etc,etc.
There are quite a few I have forgotten/omitted.
You should ask some of the BWee old-stagers.

Naaah Scotty, s'easy mate.
Like driving a Formula 1 car, just mash accelerator and steer. Move over Lewis. Or being a Doctor, just brandish your stethoscope and say " take two aspirin and call me in the morning." How hard is that?
Hell, I can count backwards from 10 down to 1, maybe I'll be a rocket scientist.
You seem to know a lot about BWIA/CAL, think back; there have been over 30 "foreign experts", who ran some of the biggest airlines in the world, who have failed in T&T and left sadder but wiser (and richer!).
Flying aeroplanes on short routes is very expensive. They are all better at cruising than taking off and landing. So the bigger proportion of the operating day spent taking off, landing, and just sitting being reloaded and serviced, the higher the operating cost.
But the public (and govt) expect cheap fares. There is a rough rule of thumb that says if you reduce the sector length by 50% from the optimum or design sector length, you increase the cost per mile by 100%.
The Caribbean is nothing but short sectors. What BW/CAL makes on the long haul,is rapidly eaten by the add-on short haul sectors. Poor LIAT doesn't have any long-haul!
And therein lies the rub.

I think the latin version was even more succinct. " Veni, vidi, vici." Julius Caesar

Perhaps the Honorable Commissioner can be excused some of his naivete, in that he "now come".
He should look up the Mighty Sparrow's piece "We like it so" on youtube, and listen to the words. That is sung well over 20 years ago, and is still most appropriate. The players may have changed, but the game has not.
Several teams have come and gone, and there is very little to show.
Sad but true.

I am amazed; this fractious bunch of gallerying buffoons, who cannot agree even on the time of day, have suddenly found a miraculous harmony.
The perfect example of the pervasive "Meefirst" culture of T&T.
Failed State?, nah, way past that.

How many more? There was Gibbon, Bowen, and no doubt others I have overlooked. Sad loss of promising young men.
But, we like it so.
It is meefirst, devil take the hindermost, survival of the fittest. The perfect capitalist society. Fox news would be exstatic
We have Carnival, Rum, fete, and lime.
Life sweet.
What more you want, paradise?
Everything is OK, trust me, I am a Trini.
Now stop complaining and go back to feteing, you're wasting valuable time.

Britain was being strangled by rampant German U-boats. They were about to be starved into submission. The "obsolete" destroyers were the only thing that was "ready to go" to be thrown into the breach and buy time to stock up on more modern equipment. They were the straw that the dying man clutched. Desperate times.

2 simple things needed.
1.Knowledge; to know the law, and why it is there.
2.Enforcement; to vigorously enforce the existing laws without fear or favour.

S'easy, innit?
Not really, with the current law enforcement people.
All, from constables to ministers, have become accustomed to lazy and slap-dash operation, and see no reason to make the serious commitment and effort needed to change.
Put crudely there is nothing in it for them.
Failed state.