THERE appear to be growing contradictions involving some governments in our Caribbean Community which, on the one hand, keep repeating support for regional airline LIAT, while anxious to have new low-cost carrier REDjet as a primary challenger on traditional intra-regional routes in the eastern Caribbean.
I do not buy into claims that both Caribbean Airlines (CAL)—owned by Trinidad and Tobago and and Jamaica—and REDjet (whatever the precise composition of its ownership identity) have a vested interest in eventually squeezing out of business the old faithful LIAT that has been with us for some 55 years.
But the contradictions in the nature of the embrace by some eastern Caribbean governments professing to be both committed to LIAT's survival and at the same time enthusiastically welcoming REDjet—and without any known critical assessment of its bona fides and performance credibility—could well result in unexpected and undesirable problems for dependable regional air transportation.
This columnist and others here and elsewhere have previously noted that facing commercial competition over the years from start-up carriers has been a virtual way of life for LIAT, including the likes of BWExpress, CaribExpress, plus the two also collapsed airlines of the now disgraced Texan tycoon, Allen Stanford.
Coping with non-subsidised rising aviation fuel cost, and maintaining its intra-regional services with 18 aircraft with some 150 flights daily in servicing 22 destinations has been very challenging for LIAT's survival, with almost 1,000 employees and staying engaged with unions. It is not the kind of record that start-up competitors can point to.
The pivotal three shareholders of LIAT are: the governments of Barbados—which, as the major of the trio of LIAT shareholders, welcomed REDjet to set up its operational base in the country with a reported 51 per cent Barbadian ownership; Antigua and Barbuda (prime hub for LIAT) and St Vincent and the Grenadines.
There has never been a prior meeting of the trio of lead LIAT shareholders on the way forward prior to the registration of REDjet to operate from Grantley Adams International Airport, as far as is known, nor has there been any effort to promote a wider regional level consensus on the approval of operational licences for start-up airlines.
In the case of REDjet, which acquired its two aircraft from a United States corporation, it still cannot fly into the US as, according to the US Federal Aviation Authority (FAA), Barbados is yet to meet regulation standards that prevent Barbados-based airlines (such as REDjet) from entering the US.
In the meanwhile, if REDjet hopes to generate region-wide public support, to the disadvantage of LIAT, as well as CAL, then it surely cannot afford to replicate the poor service being complained about by passengers seeking to take advantage of its comparative low-fare on the Guyana-Barbados route.
Following earlier reports in the Guyanese and other media of the region that featured angry complaints from frustrated, stranded passengers at Guyana's Cheddi Jagan International Airport, the Barbados Daily Nation reported in its August 8 edition over the headline "Seeing red over REDjet service", on expressed bitter experiences of passengers booked from Guyana to Barbados, but failed to make the journey.
What is quite surprising about this scenario is that REDjet's owners (about whose identity questions persist) have been engaged in a publicity blitz about the reliability of service awaiting passengers on the Barbados-Guyana route, even as it was intensifying energies to secure operational licences from T&T and Jamaica.
Just last week, the prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda, Baldwin Spencer, went public with a plea to his fellow Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community to help in the funding of LIAT.
Prime minister Spencer's call last month for a wider funding partnership—beyond the three primary shareholders, Barbados, Antigua and Barbuda and St Vincent and the Grenadines—came against the backdrop of controversies surrounding the bid by REDjet to now access airline markets in the eastern Caribbean.
It is of significance that neither current Caricom chairman Prime Minister Denzil Douglas of St Kitts and Nevis nor St Lucia's prime minister, Stephenson King, new chairman of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), has indicated any interest in a funding arrangement for LIAT as urged by prime minister Spencer.
However, should the contradictions of some eastern Caribbean governments persist in trying to befriend REDjet while hoping to retain the goodwill of LIAT, the two countries likely to be worse affected could be Antigua and Barbuda and St Vincent and the Grenadines.
In the case of Antigua and Barbuda, the bulk of LIAT's employees are located there; and in relation to St Vincent and the Grenadines it heavily depends—in the absence of an international airport—on the regional carrier. Its government also has strong doubts about REDjet's capacity to provide the services needed and its long-term economic viability. Time will tell.
Right now, REDjet has the challenge of resolving the grievances of affected passengers on the Guyana-Barbados route.
