LIAT CUTTING ROUTES

LIAT, the Caribbean airline which currently operates 548 flights per week – consisting of approximately 78 daily flights to 18 destinations – will soon be taking action to remove all non-performing routes, following a commercial assessment to be made by its management.

 

Chairman of LIAT’s Shareholder Board, Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Dr. Ralph Gonsalves, made the announcement yesterday during a press conference which followed LIAT’s Shareholder Government Meeting, held at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre.

 

Accompanying Dr Gonsalves was Prime Minister of Barbados, The Rt. Hon. Freundel Stuart; Minister of Public Utilities, Civil Aviation and Transport for Antigua and Barbuda, Sir Robin Yearwood; Barbados’ Minister of Tourism and International Transport, Richard Sealy; LIAT’s Chairman Dr. Jean Holder; and LIAT’s Acting CEO Julie Reifer-Jones.

 

In light of a number of limitations facing the airline, Dr.  Gonsalves noted that an action plan was formed, and as part of that plan certain routes will be cut.

 

“A critical review of the schedule has to be fine-tuned. Clearly, LIAT needs to do fewer routes, but do what we are doing much better. So this would mean eliminating some routes and cooperating with third party carriers on those routes. And LIAT has to continue removing non-performing routes as appropriate, based on a commercial assessment,” he pointed out.

 

Noting that LIAT’s management has identified areas where they are seeing negative returns, he suggested that it will be up to management to make the determination as to which routes are to be cut. However, this will be done in accordance with the policy laid down by the shareholders, he stated.

 

Giving the assurance that it will not be a simple “chop and cut”, Gonsalves said that some time will be needed to make key adjustments. 

 

In terms of weekly LIAT flights, figures given indicate that Barbados heads the list with 112, followed by Antigua with 69, and St. Vincent with 49. Other countries down the line include St. Kitts, St. Lucia, Dominica and Grenada respectively.

 

Gonsalves meanwhile revealed that at the Shareholder Meeting, the three shareholder governments were asked to put up an additional $5 million for LIAT.

 

“In going forward, we the shareholders, we are requesting to approve an additional $5 million dollars Eastern Caribbean - to be divided in the proportionate shares between Barbados, Antigua and Barbuda and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Dominica is a shareholder, but given their challenges with Erika, we are not asking anything of them in this round,” he explained.

 

On the heels of that, Gonsalves noted that there is still a long term capitalisation issue to be addressed with the Caribbean Development Bank. It was also noted that the shareholder governments will be looking to have more participation from the other territories which benefit from the LIAT network, and those governments which desire more routes will have to put some money into the airline. (RSM)