WHEN IT COMES to the regional airline LIAT and its relationship with St Lucia, the recently elected Prime Minister of that country ought to adopt a very simple motto – pay up, or shut up!
Allen Chastanet has long made his position on LIAT known. While he was in opposition he objected strongly to any public funds from that country going to prop up the airline, and since he became Prime Minister he has left no doubt about his stance: not a cent of St Lucian taxpayers’ money will go to LIAT.
With Chastanet’s background in business, particularly as it relates to Air Jamaica and the Sandals empire, when he speaks on such matters what he says should not be taken lightly. But at the end of the day he cannot reasonably expect to wash his hands of the airline and still “wash his mouth” on it. He needs to shut up, since he is not about to pay up.
It would not be inaccurate to suggest that few regional institutions have upset as many Caribbean people over the years as LIAT.
But whether or not we are willing to admit it, LIAT had provided an invaluable service to regional people and commerce for decades. It would be hard to imagine this region without LIAT, particularly given the fact that it moves more than one million people each year.
Just this week, respected regional banker Horace Cobham, recognising the predicament the airline faces, suggested it was time for LIAT to withdraw service from countries whose governments refuse to assist the cash-strapped airline. Currently the major shareholders of the company are Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica and St Vincent and the Grenadines – and year after year they have injected the taxes of their citizens to keep it flying.
We understand Cobham’s position, but recognise too that it would not be a straight forward thing for LIAT to just drop from its schedule islands that don’t support it financially. And perhaps it is because these governments know this that they behave the way they do. If for example, the airline dropped St Lucia from its schedule, it would hurt itself significantly since it would be losing the revenue now obtained from persons who use its planes to get there from Barbados or St Vincent or Antigua.
The region is so inter-connected and its people too dependent of communications with each other for a drop-them-if-they-don’t-pay approach to work. The airline would kill itself in the process – and we don’t buy Chastanet’s argument that if LIAT collapses some other airline would automatically rise from its ashes.
We therefore suggest an alternative approach. It is time for CARICOM leaders to convene a special Heads of Government conference with LIAT and its future as the only item on the agenda. And it should be a meeting that includes public sector civil aviation technocrats and pre-selected private sector experts to give guidance.
Efficient travel is critical to the future development of the Caribbean and we cannot get results by maintaining the insular and often misguided approach that has informed the subject for decades. If it does not make economic sense for LIAT’s headquarters to remain in Antigua then our leaders must do the sensible thing. If full privatisation is determined to be the best approach then it has to be discussed and implemented. If a merger with other regionally-based carriers like Caribbean Airlines and Bahamas Air makes more sense then our leaders needs to be able to say so and to act on it as well.
If a two-or three-year waiver on all those burdensome airport fees and ticket taxes that make travel so expensive would give LIAT a second chance at life by encouraging more regional travel then it has to be seriously discussed.
What we cannot afford is the insular, fragmented, almost timid and half-hearted approach to seeking efficiency and viability for LIAT that has existed for so long. Solving the LIAT challenge cannot be beyond us as a region.