BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – AS it is expected to return to the skies with a leaner operation, Antigua and Barbuda’s Prime Minister Gaston Browne has sent a strong signal to the staff who will return to the company.
Currently, the airline is being run by a court-appointed administration, which, according to Browne, was expected to terminate existing staff contracts and work on rehiring some of those employees.
PM Browne, speaking on the ‘Browne and Browne Show’ on local station Pointe FM, indicated that the bad culture that was in the airline prior to the restructuring would be a thing of the past.
Prioritising discipline will be the focus of the airline going forward as he is hopeful that some 100 people would be employed by the Antigua-based entity.
“We want disciplined people! All you ‘rotten eggs’ who have been giving troubles over the years...the receiver should not take yal back. They should look into yal background,” he lamented.
The airline has been troubled over the years by a number of issues, from technical to bad attitude from staff, to cash challenges.
But as the airline continues to focus on restructuring and remaining operational, PM Browne told radio listeners that the operations of the entity would not be bloated as it previously was.
“We are not going to pay 600-700 people money every month to have a bloated LIAT and then we can’t sustain it and have to collapse it,” Browne emphasised. “We have to have a very lean LIAT going forward!”
Meanwhile, in relation to severance for those employees who will be terminated, the Prime Minister reminded that St. Johns alone could not bear the entire cost.
“You cannot be sending threats and all your snide remarks and so on, and the bad culture that we had in LIAT,” he noted.
