Last April I was on cloud nine while congratulating, in this column, the entrance of low-cost carrier REDjet into a regional market that was suffused with exorbitant airfares and poor service. Less than a year later, that dream of being able to travel at reasonable costs within the Caribbean has ended for me and hundreds of others.
Oh, for a relief from those high prices, shoddy customer service, long lines at boarding gates, being herded into uncomfortable and hot cabins, high “penalties” if you miss a flight or have to shorten your stay in a neighbouring territory! Must we return to that?
No doubt the surviving airlines are secretly gloating at this time, for without competition, Caribbean people will again fall under the yoke of the monopoly: Caribbean Airlines Limited (CAL), fully funded by fuel-rich Trinidad and Tobago, and LIAT, which continues to be subsidized by its owners Antigua, Barbados and St Vincent.
It is expected that they will raise their prices again, and the people of the region will see that there’s no such thing as “fairplay” when there are no other players on the playing field.
In talking to a few airline executives since the suspension of flights by REDjet just over a week ago, I’m convinced that the Irish-Barbadian-owned airline came into the market a tad too low in its pricing structure.
Maybe, just maybe, the owners had in their minds a model of the successful Irish airline, Ryanair, which flies to over 160 destinations across European cities at very low prices.
But, unfortunately, the Caribbean population is not nearly as large as those stretching across Austria, France, the Netherlands and Britain itself.
Maybe, if REDjet had started operations last May at a slightly higher price than the attractive $19.99, which with the inclusion of taxes worked out to about half the price of the other carriers, the hundreds of people taking advantage of those cheap flights to Trin-bago Carnival and other whirlwind events would still be smiling today.
When I saw the REDjet’s forays into Jamaica and Trinidad and the regular “specials”, I immediately drew comparisons to the cellphone war a few years earlier that had forced the established service provider, Cable & Wireless, to tailor its prices to meet the competition brought by Irish-owned Digicel.
As anticipated, that’s what LIAT and CAL did: slash their prices. But instead of healthy competition, the almost immediate cuts virtually killed REDjet, since the established airlines continued to fly on the wings of large subsidies.
In other words, it became clear that the established airlines didn’t even need to make a profit nor operate efficiently, since any shortfall would have been filled by the owner-states anyway.
So while REDjet’s offers looked “sweet” from my side, since the average passenger from Barbados would no longer have had to pay $600 plus to get to St Vincent and the Grenadines next door, or $900 to enjoy Trinidad and Tobago Carnival, it would have been impossible for REDjet to sustain cheap fares to those destinations simply because the volume of passengers was too small and taxpayer-funded airlines could instantly cut their fares the moment a new private player like REDjet entered the air space.
This is sad, and means that the Caribbean may never enjoy affordable air transport; not if state-funded airlines can slash and raise fares willy-nilly.
Regulations therefore need to be put in place and monitored so that Government-funded airlines should have to maintain, for at least a year, the fares they were charging before the entrance of any new private carrier.
And if after 12 months the subsidized carriers drop their fares, then they should likewise have to maintain the lowered fares for another year.
That would level the playing field somewhat and encourage true competition; for at this time any potential competitor is doomed before takeoff!
Another nagging element in the system is that once a Government which is funding an airline also has the authority to regulate and issue licences, then the conflict of interest has to be massive.
Then we wonder about delays in Kingston and Port of Spain for nearly two months?
Who would invest hard-earned money in a climate where the regulator owns and subsidizes an airline?
The joy of cheap travel around the Caribbean has been short-lived, but it has opened our eyes to a system that can reasonably be called “unfair”.
It’s obvious, too, that the aviation industry is controlling the governments of the Caribbean and not the other way around, as should obtain in a community where movement of people is a necessary priority.
One can only hope that our leaders at the CARICOM level also realize this, and look at fostering efficient and affordable movement of people, as well as an environment for competition in the aviation industry.
This would redound to the good of most Caribbean folk, who long for a chance to travel to each other’s festivals, visit friends and family, and conduct day-to-day business, at affordable costs.
