The Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda, Baldwin Spencer, has gone public with a plea to his fellow Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community that deserves a serious regional response: governments, other than the current trio of major shareholders of LIAT, should contribute to the funding of the Caribbean airline that has been faithfully serving regional destinations for 55 years.
Prime Minister Spencer’s call last month for a wider funding partnership – beyond the three primary shareholders, Barbados, Antigua and Barbuda and St Vincent and the Grenadines – came against the backdrop of controversies surrounding the bid by Barbados-based low-fare REDjet airline to access the commercial markets of Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica. That problem has since been resolved, though related questions persist.
Significantly, neither current CARICOM chairman Prime Minister Denzil Douglas of S Kitts and Nevis, nor St Lucia’s Prime Minister Stephenson King, new chairman of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), has indicated any interest in a funding arrangement for LIAT.
LIAT has survived many financial, industrial relations and political storms to proudly remain a virtual household, family-embraced airline name in our region.
Yet, while Prime Minister Douglas spoke enthusiastically in support of REDjet’s commercial flights into St Kitts and Nevis, he has been remarkably silent on Spencer’s plea for a wider funding partnership to sustain the viability of LIAT, the most widely used intra-regional carrier that criss-crosses our Caribbean Community and beyond on a regular daily basis.
Prime Minister Spencer was quite emphatic in urging governments to help fund LIAT –?“in the same way”, as he said, “they provide a significant amount of money to international airlines to service this region. Some of these governments have benefitted tremendously from LIAT’s operations and cannot do without it; yet they find it difficult to provide any form of assistance . . . .” That’s telling it like it is.
LIAT’s long-serving chairman Jean Holder has recently provided a robust response to prevailing misconceptions about LIAT being “propped up” by governments He is well respected for his knowledge not only about LIAT’s operations but about regional air transportation in general and its vital service to the Caribbean’s tourism sector.
As I understand it, neither Prime Minister Spencer nor chairman Holder is holding out a begging bowl for government subsidies for LIAT. They have separately been pointing to the varying levels of subsidies some governments expediently allocate to foreign airlines in support of their tourism sector. Spencer, in particular, is questioning these same governments’ reluctance to make a similar investment in support of LIAT that is, unquestionably, a vital link for regional tourism.
This reminds me that all who may be interested in having an informed understanding of not merely LIAT’s history of service to the Caribbean, but the critical role of regional air transportation for sustainable regional economic growth, would find as a most useful fact-based source Jean Holder’s book Don’t Burn Our Bridges – The Case For Owning Airlines.
