BWIA aircraft flying in France

The aircraft — still in the colours and design of BWIA — flies from France to nine European destinations and also to north Africa, under the name “transavia.com”.

Together with Air France, transavia.com established a new French airline under the name Transavia Airline Company. It is an independent entity within the Air France KLM group, Sunday Newsday understands. The airline is currently engaged in a re-branding exercise.

Francois Pariseau, Caribbean Airline’s marketing director acknowledged that the aircraft is one of its fleet which has not been repainted.

“It’s been leased to a company for the summer and is due back in late December,” Pariseau said.

Pariseau said Caribbean Airlines was fulfilling contractural arrangements made before Caribbean Airlines came into existence.

Disgruntled BWIA investors reacted bitterly yesterday on being informed that the BWIA plane is flying out of France. Seeing the plane again, brought back bad memories, a source yesterday stated.

One investor questioned,” What about the private shareholders in BWIA? Are they not going to get anything? Investors got the shaft so far with BWIA — what is happening?

“And when are they going to issue shares in Caribbean Airlines, but more to the point, who is going to buy them seeing how the shareholders in BWIA were treated?

The 66-year-old BWIA was shutdown last December and Caribbean Airlines took flight on January 1, this year.

Also, on the local aviation front, all is not well with Tobago Express, which is making renewed calls for a fare increase between the islands, claiming it is not running economically despite Government’s subsidy of $100 for every passenger.

Recently, Caribbean Airlines’s staff engaged in industrial action triggering passenger chaos at Piarco and Crown Point Airports.

“Why is the Government driving Caribbean Airlines to bankruptcy?” a source close to Caribbean Airlines told Sunday Newsday, yesterday.

“Tobago Express is stagnant, where are we going to get the money to keep on flying — everybody wants an increase,” the source said, underlining that the fare to Grenada — more than $1,000 — is much more economically viable for any airline to survive.