ST. JOHN’S, Antigua, Jun 12, CMC – Shareholder governments of the regional airline, LIAT, are likely to meet later this month to discuss, among issues, the acquisition of new aircraft for the Antigua-based airline, St. Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves has said.
St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Antigua and Barbuda and Barbados are the shareholder governments of the airline that on Monday suffered “significant” financial losses after a fire destroyed one of its planes and gutted a hangar and adjacent offices at its Antigua base.
Gonsalves, speaking on radio here, said that plans to acquire new planes for the airline were being discussed prior to the devastating fire and he hoped the meeting of the shareholders would take place before the end of this month.
“We have to have a shareholder’s meeting. One was on the cards and then had to be postponed. Sometime later this month, next month early, I know there are a couple of important meetings on the horizon …which some prime ministers are going to but I would hope by the end of the month that we can have the meeting of LIAT.
“We have had a lot of preparatory work done on the type of aircraft we would go for in respect of the fleet expansion, but these are challenging economic times and we have to be very careful as we go forward,” he said, acknowledging that “while we have to expand at the same time we have to be prudent”.
Gonsalves said “one bright spark” resulting from the fire that the LIAT chairman Jean Holder described as a “great tragedy” for the 56-year-old airline, is the decision by Dominica to make its financial contributions next week to become a shareholder.
Gonsalves said that his Dominican counterpart, Roosevelt Skerrit, would make a “sizeable” financial amount to acquire the shares, adding he was not at liberty to disclose the figure at the moment.
“The money will be paid next week, this is the kind of solidarity we are looking for,” he said, adding he was still awaiting word from St. Lucia that has also shown an interest in acquiring shares in the regional island hoping airline.
“I know their budget is not out of the way so we will probably hear something,” Gonsalves said, adding that he had taken the opportunity of the meeting of leaders from the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) in his homeland on Monday to push for more participation in the airline by the sub-regional leaders.
