Coming soon: plans, strategies

‘When this subsidy is revisited on the expiration of 18 months, it is hoped that these commercial flights would be so entrenched that there would be no further need for the government stepping up to the financial plate.’

Things must be looking up for our beleaguered airline BWIA. First of all it has been able to maintain a very low profile over the past two months or so, except for the severance issue and the incident involving its two pilots in the United States. If we are to read between the lines of what Trade Minister Ken Valley said Monday, it would seem that the airline is having a really good winter peak so far, maintaining a decent load factor and with our carnival just weeks away, it would appear that the traffic density would prevail. Minister Valley, speaking about the airline, sounded very upbeat while not allowing the slightest trace of what was really happening at Piarco. Both the minister and top level company officers are keeping everything close to their chests.

In answering questions at Monday’s media conference, the minister hedged on whether the airline had chosen a new Chief Executive Officer to replace acting CEO Nelson Tom Yew. All he would say was that “the interim CEO was doing an excellent job.”  While this might be so, it must be remembered that Tom Yew from the outset had indicated he was not interested in the job. Valley also hedged when asked about new investors or whether the present shareholders had decided after all, to pour more money into the ailing airline. No direct answer, but he denied that there was any approach from British Airways, but admitted that Virgin Atlantic was showing an interest, but again no specifics were divulged. So given all that, it doesn’t take rocket science to conclude that BWIA (West Indies Airways Limited) will continue to fly the Caribbean skies for sometime yet, if only through the financial assistance of the government of Trinidad and Tobago. If we back up a little, we would remember government’s rush to assist when the airline defaulted on its lease payments; when they allocated millions to ensure that the airline remained aloft. Then in the middle of all that, with the government’s help again BWIA started operating services on new routes - to Costa Rica and later to Cuba.

In a week’s time BWIA embarks on another new route — to the Dominican Republic and there’s talk about service to Panama, Brazil, Colombia and Guatemala. In every instance so far, the government has allocated a subsidy to assist the airline in at least breaking even. Minister Valley acknowledged that the subsidy, which he described as “capital expenditure” was working not only to the benefit of BWIA, but Trinidad and Tobago as a whole, since these services were impacting positively on our manufacturing and financial sectors particularly. We must be reminded also that Valley and his team have been working assiduously to ensure that Port of Spain is the chosen city for the headquarters of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) and BWIA must play a major role in that scenario. Assurances must have been given that air links between FTAA member countries would be regular and efficient. What better assurance than the host country having its own airline. Apart from this reality, BWIA mounting scheduled services to all these Central and Latin American cities would redound to the benefit of our tourism plant as well as the development of cultural ties and serious increases in trade.

In addition, the Manning Cabinet has approved a bilingual initiative to make Spanish our first foreign language. This programme is expected to be launched later this year. All this points to one thing - the continued existence of BWIA and a justification for the subsidy now being given to the airline for mounting all these additional routes to FTAA countries. When this subsidy is revisited on the expiration of 18 months, it is hoped that these commercial flights would be so entrenched that there would be no further need for the government stepping up to the financial plate. By that time BWIA should have become such a well-known name in FTAA travel plans that the airline would have no choice but to become profitable again.

What if Trinidad and Tobago fails in its bid to secure the siting of the FTAA headquarters? That doesn’t even seem to come into play. On that score Minister Valley said he was “very comfortable.” In other words he was almost certain that Port-of- Spain is it. He backed this up by saying that several Caricom partners were getting ready to mount missions to FTAA countries to lend strong support to this bid. So now that the Dominican Republic is next on the new destination list, the obvious conclusion is that BWIA will remain alive and flying. We expect that by next week we would be hearing something of the future of the national airline. Any takers on a wager that BWIA would not go belly-up. As a matter of fact, there is this strong chance that expansion plans are now being discussed at meetings either at Piarco or Riverside Plaza.