LIAT not responsible for Carib Aviation closure, says CEO
By Ryan Haas
Reporter-SKNVibes.com
BASSETERRE, St. Kitts-IN an exclusive interview with SKNVibes today (Sept. 15), LIAT airlines Chief Executive Officer Mark Darby refuted allegations that his company’s recruitment of Carib Aviation pilots contributed in any way to the latter carrier’s planned closure.
“The truth is we did recruit their pilots, but we did not go targeting them. They were offering themselves to us,” Darby said.
The CEO of LIAT’s response came on the heels of allegations made by Carib Aviation Chairman Bruce Kaufman, who claimed that a “mass recruitment of Carib crew by LIAT” was the main reason that the carrier’s sudden closure.
According to Kaufman, seven crew members filed resignations in the past month, causing Carib Aviation to have insufficient pilots and first officers that are certified to operate its Twin Otter aircraft. ~~Adz:Right~~
“Because Carib will not be able to generate enough revenue on this scaled down schedule, it will incur crippling and unsustainable financial losses as the available revenue will not be able to cover overheads and or operating costs,” Kaufman stated in a press release.
Darby, however, stated that he feels the verbal attacks against LIAT are unwarranted and his company was merely trying to restock its own depleted crew.
“Our pilots have been targeted by Caribbean Airlines and we lost a lot of crew members to them, so we had to take some sort of recourse. [Carib Aviation] had just laid off a load of pilots, so it was mainly those who we recruited.
“It was never our intention to hurt Carib Aviation’s business. I think it is very unfortunate they have chosen to use this type of language against us,” Darby told SKNVibes.
He said that Kaufman’s allegations were particularly upsetting considering that the two airlines had formerly worked together on a number of schedules and issues.
“We have been very supportive of Carib in recent months. They had a major safety incident at the beginning of the summer and we played that down,” Darby said in reference to a July incident which saw a Carib Aviation flight grounded by the Eastern Caribbean Civil Aviation Authority.
“If we wanted to drive Carib Aviation out of business we could have done it then easily, but that wasn’t the case.”
Kaufman also claims that LIAT violated the February 13, 2008 agreement between the two carriers, which required the “giving of at least the statutory 30 days notice of resignation” by Carib pilots if they were going to join the ranks of LIAT.
“We had an agreement some time ago where we deliberately did not recruit Carib pilots because we knew it was putting them under pressure, but at the same time we had just about every one of their pilots knocking on our door saying, ‘give us a job.’
“If somebody’s business isn’t running very well and you’re going out of business, I guess you look for other people to blame. I think the situation was that this was an airline that over expanded and we were very supportive of them, so it came as a big surprise when they decided they were pulling the plug. I think it has as much to do with not being paid by various governments as anything else,” Darby said.
Having ended a majority of its schedule, Carib Aviation will continue to operate three Antigua-Montserrat routes and two Antigua-Barbuda routes until its final closure on September 30, which includes all scheduled charter services past that date.
