Airlines are lining up to fill the void after plans were announced that LIAT 1974 Ltd will be liquidated.
Outgoing CARICOM Chairperson, Prime Minister Mia Mottley said SVG Air, One Caribbean Airline, Inter-Caribbean Airline, Silver Airways and Air Antilles have all expressed interest.
Mottley was speaking at the 20th Special Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) on Friday.
The Barbados Prime Minister said shareholders could no longer support the Antigua-based LIAT, which has been facing financial difficulties for years.
“Liquidating LIAT has not been an easy decision”, she saod adding, “we come to this moment as a matter of practical reality that governments must focus on keeping their citizens alive, that governments must focus on keeping their economies going”.
Mottley said private sector players will have to come together and fill the gap “because governments have now to use their funds to be able to deal with health expenditure, to be able to deal with water, to be able to deal with other forms of transport to be able to deal with the fact that our tourism sector as well as out vulnerable population are all requiring us to hold their hands because they have come to zero revenue”.
She called on governments to facilitate regional air travel by reducing taxes and provide licenses and air operator certificates to private airlines.
New CARICOM Chairman, Ralph Gonsalves of St. Vincent and the Grenadines added “I believe that we are going to be able to provide in a very short time a sufficiency of regional transport to serve the sub-region, to serve ourselves safely, reliably, sustainably and reasonably priced.”
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Bim/SVG govts. making clear decisions based on realistic understanding of their social responsibilities to their people and the actual economic reality of their treasury.
Hopefully A&B will be similarly realistic in its decision making.
BTW the engineering excellence at Liat 1974 should be salvaged. For years they have provided trusted support to the big airlines from outside the region and been much applauded for their skill, problem-solving and ‘get it done’ attitude, along with 100% safety record.
Some chess moves being made, plenty big bluff/ distractions at play. There is one treat and Covid has negatively impacted them too. 14 million usd lost as of June. They have hardly made any net profits and in may received a 65 million usd loan from the TNT government. This takes their total debt (borrowed from TNT government)to 135 million usd ( 70,860,947.75 usd plus 65 million usd)
BTW SVG, BIM, TNT, GRENADA, DOMINICA ALL HAVE A GOOD RELATIONSHIP NOW THEY throwing LIAT under the bus and run there own airline… they already started just that ANU NOT ON THE CHART BUT FROM ANY OTHER ISLAND SO YEAH PM NOT HAPPY CAUSE NOW THEY ALL WANNA PULL OUT OF LIAT AND PROVIDE CHEAPER FLIGHTS… SO YES HE HAVE MORE SHEAR IN IT THAN THE OTHERS SO YES NO MONEY TO PAY THE PEOPLE N YES HE NOT HAPPY CAUSE HE CANT KEEP LIAT TOGETHER
It is very disheartening to see LIAT going over the cliff.I grew up with this Airline.I flew this Airline every other weekend to St.Kitts from Antigua for $20 EC.Then they raised the fare by $1 EC to $21 EC.That did not stopped me from going on my trips.The planes were pristine.The Flight Attendants were as beautiful as the stars of the nights.Good luck to the new LIAT.
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