National pride in BWIA?

THE EDITOR: I don't understand DOMA and Kenneth Ramnath when they protest that BWIA is somehow vitally and inalienably connected to our nationhood, independence, national prestige etc.

How so? An airline which is more a paper company than anything else (it owns no aircraft — a necessary element one would have thought) which loses money, has apparently suffered form incompetent management (at best) for years and whose aircraft's logos do nowhere mention "Trinidad and Tobago" — how so? I would think that it would be much more relevant to take national pride in an efficient, reliable public transport company on which Trinidad and Tobago citizens could entirely have confidence, a land and sea bridge between the twin islands, a thoroughly streamlined and cutting edge health care service and an absolutely first class primary, secondary and tertiary level education system on part with anywhere in the world. Wouldn't these things be much more relevant and valuable to own sense of national pride? What's an airline? Such things come and go. Excellence is a permanent state of mind!

GEOFF HUDSON
Port-of-Spain