Prime Minister Gaston Browne has responded to calls for LIAT to resume services saying that the airline would need a lot of people to move because of its poor financial situation.
LIAT announced last month that its passenger services will be suspended for another month, until June 30th, 2020.
Browne says LIAT cannot resume operations until other regional airports open.
“LIAT needs a critical mass of people to move and most of the countries within the region they are still closed. So until such time that they open their borders LIAT will not be able to resume services.
“LIAT is just waiting for them to open up so that they can resume their service,” Browne told Pointe FM over the weekend.
He said the financial position of LIAT has not improved and the airline would need another bailout.
“I made the point too that LIAT is in a very precarious position and we going to come to have to come together to put some form on bailout package in order to ensure the survivability of LIAT. It was bad prior to COVID it’s even worse now.”
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Advice from a simpleton. Mr. PM, taxpayers really shouldn’t have to dig further into their long burnt out pockets to bail out LIAT. We have had enough! St the same time however, LIAT not only occipies a special place in the hearts and minds of C/bean people, especially the Leeward islands, but it employs a significant quantity of our very own family members. LIAT requires serious rsstructuring. Given its current dusmal posirion, LIAT needs to, gor one, slash its operational costs starting with its current wage bill. LIAT management must agree to or be made to deflate its remuneration packages and cancel the many, self gratifyng perks. Governments who contribute to LIAT’s upkeep need to ease off strangling the life out of this invaluable regional asset with the multiplicity of taxes which serves only to drive up the cost of travel within the region and suppress the appetite for the service. LIAT could then be in a position to offer attractive travel fares to the neighbouring islands. I am sure that student travel alone, whether for culural or linguistic purposes, could save LIAT, not to mention the host of sports and social clubs that are anxious to enjoy the Csribbean experience, domestic/regional tourists whose vacation dollars could help revive LIAT. Bailouts again? No!!! That leaves us with a sour taste….again.
Exactly! No more bailouts. Staff take a paycut and regional governments cut their taxes, it’s as easy as that. I would rather take a paycut than be made redundant.
nationalize the airline without compensation. It is a needed service for those who want to fly between various Caribbean islands. It therefore should be taken under government control and run as a non profit service.
In my opinion LIAT should be made to go into Bankruptcy.It is a cesspool of corruption.It is digging the eyes out of its customers for too many years now.Bailout out LIAT with poor people taxpaying dollars.Would be tantamount to throwing monies into a latrine hole with no bottom.It would never be solvent under the current systems in place.The owners of LIAT are the shareholders of the Nations that are pumping money into it.It is not sustainable.LIAT present demise has not one thing to do with COVID 19. LIAT had money issues of mass proportion before COVID 19 came onto the scene.COVID19 just exposes its nakedness for all to see.Sell LIAT and let private enterprises take it over and run it properly.Not the money drain and poking out of our eyes.Where a ticket from Antigua to St.Kitts cost over $1000 EC.round trip.That is like Robin Hood in the reverse.Thiefing from the poor people(taxpayers) who owned LIAT. To give to the same Administrations who ran it into the ground in the first place.
What was the last situation where some weird stuff went down and everyone acted like it was normal, and you weren’t sure if you were crazy or everyone around you was crazy?
This LIAT thingy needs to go bankrupt. Other airlines and business will fill the need, if there is truly a demand. Our government needs to stop subsidizing a stupid and unprofitable company like this. I like our PM, but he is too optimistic about LIAT.
Yes LIAT needs restructuring from the top. ..Staff delivers all the time but the management don’t. Call for bankruptcy and thousands of households in the region will be affected. What we need to call for is the government and management to end the corruption and make sensibly decisions.
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