Liat bails as C’bean Star soars

While LIAT, the beleaguered intra-regional carrier has gone on the road again looking for millions of dollars in financial assistance, its competitor Caribbean Star Airlines, is quietly gaining market share and is fast becoming a household word in the regional travel industry. This does not sit too well with St Vincent’s Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves, who is pushing the head that if LIAT fails, then Caribbean Star would have a monopoly in the region and as chief spokesman on air transport for CARICOM, he couldn’t allow such a thing to happen. It would seem that the Vincentian PM has forgotten that LIAT has itself, been a monopoly in the Caribbean for decades, except for two short periods when it was challenged first by Caribe Express and later on by Air Jamaica’s subsidiary, EC Express. LIAT was able to kill these two initiatives rather quickly.

History seemed set to repeat itself a fortnight ago when rumours ran rife throughout the region about Caribbean Star ceasing operations. The rumour started when pilots at Caribbean Star were agitating over the resolution of some outstanding issues, but owner/Chairman Allen Stanford intervened and set matters right after meeting with the pilot body. Stanford moved quickly to have the airline back on its flight path, dismissing that rumour with a strongly worded statement saying he had “no current plans to close down Caribbean Star,” but instead, he intended to assume “a more active role in directing the company’s continued growth.” The airline lost its Chief Executive Officer Paul Moreira, who resigned about six weeks ago to return to Canada. Another CEO has not yet been appointed and so Stanford is expected to play a more pivotal role in the airline’s operations.

Stanford said his new oversight would include a complete review of the airline’s operations. He also insisted that he was focusing “on plans for development of the airline’s products in fulfillment of his vision for Caribbean Star and its sister airline Caribbean Sun, to become the world’s best airlines.” In a letter in the latest edition of the airline’s in-flight magazine, Altitude, Stanford wrote,  “The combined fleet of Caribbean Star and Caribbean Sun is the largest Dash-8 fleet in the eastern Caribbean. The larger fleet not only makes more seats available and increases flight options, but also gives us greater flexibility in our affiliations with international carriers.” As a Caribbean airline, therefore, Caribbean Star and its competitor LIAT,  (if it could get its affairs in order) and of course BWIA and Air Jamaica, are now poised to assist in reducing the dependence on foreign carriers in regional aviation.

This dependency has been a source of worry to the regional tourism industry for decades, when it is considered that foreign airlines account for the movement of close to 80 percent of the 20 million tourists to the region annually. Speaking recently at the Sixth Caribbean Media Exchange (CMEX) in St Lucia, Jean Holder, outgoing secretary general of the Caribbean Tourism Organisation (CTO) said with tourism as the No one industry for most Caribbean states, such major dependence on foreign carriers was not in the best interest of the region. Holder pointed out that while regional carriers like BWIA, Air Jamaica and Bahamas Air have been struggling for survival in an increasingly turbulent environment, North American airlines have been focusing on the Caribbean to grow their revenues. Addressing the Caribbean tourism industry as a whole, Holder, as he has done on many occasions, once more called for regional unity in tackling the issues which now confront the industry and the need to change the negative attitudes which impact the industry.

He observed this could be possible if governments fully understood the implications for national planning, structures and systems that come from being part of a tourism economy. As part of his message, Holder said, countries which depended on tourism in the region, needed to develop alliances among themselves to provide the critical mass needed to compete globally. Holder said that while he understood the need for foreign investment, it must be done in the best interest of Caribbean people. He added that short-term solutions which gave complete control of key industries to foreign companies would, in the long run end up causing serious problems.