Time to get back to the vexed issue of regional air transportation.
This past week alone, it fell on Dr Ralph Gonsalves, the lead CARICOM prime minister with responsibility for this matter, to apprise us of developments, particularly with the Antigua-based LIAT.
Much to the surprise of many, we got word that the carrier, which registered a net profit of US$3.2 million in 2009, was once again losing money, last year in the order of US$5.5 million. Gonsalves was at pains to explain that the airline, which currently services 22 destinations mostly in the southern Caribbean, carried a total of 1.3 million passengers last year compared to 1.4 million the previous year. He also reported that LIAT, which had been placed at the centre of the regional debate over high airfares, made fewer departures in 2010 (46 597) than it did in 2009 (49 127).
Speaking at the end of a shareholders meeting in Kingstown, the Vincentian leader also took issue with plans by the Trinidad-based Caribbean Airlines (CAL) to expand its operations into the Eastern Caribbean. In fact, he suggested that CAL’s move ran contrary to the spirit of the regional integration movement and that it amounted to a hostile act on the part of the T&T government, the only shareholder in CAL.
“We would like to have a cooperation with CAL (but) . . . you can’t come and say you are going to absorb us and treat it as though it is a fait accompli,” warned Gonsalves during Wednesday’s Press conference.Equally interesting was the response that Gonsalves’ comments drew from the Works and Transport Minister in Trinidad, Jack Warner, who seems intent on moving ahead.
“All I can say is that Caribbean Airlines is expanding and we are going to new areas as well as areas where we have markets like Guyana, Haiti and Antigua.
“In some cases we may be clashing with LIAT on some of their routes. But I believe, ultimately, LIAT and CAL will sit down and talk and come together as Air Jamaica has done and as we plan to do with Bahamas Air and Cayman.
“In the end, what we see is one vision, one Caribbean airline,” Warner said.
Just last week, this newspaper sought to place a booking for Trinidad Carnival and was surprised to note that it costs almost as much for a one-hour trip to Port-of-Spain (over US$400) for the annual festivities as it does to fly for more than three hours to Miami. Regional carriers are on record as saying, don’t blame them, blame the governments for airport taxes and other add-ons, which they contend are pushing up airfares.
Wherever the blame may lie, the current state-of-play belies the seriousness of the message that our leaders would want us to heed regarding regional integration.
Surely, we will never have “One Caribbean”, if we can’t even settle on a cost-effective vehicle for bringing our people together.
