The member states of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) will discuss setting up a new regional air carrier or reviving LIAT (Antigua and Barbuda) (Antigua), Saint Vincent and the Grenadines’ prime minister, Ralph Gonsalves, has said.
Speaking at a press conference during the Conference of Heads of Government of CARICOM in Suriname earlier this month, Gonsalves said it was a “matter of urgency” to have a fully functioning airline to aid the free movement of people and goods across the Caribbean as the region hopes to rebound from devastation wreaked by the Covid-19 pandemic, News Room Guyana reported.
The leaders of Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Saint Lucia, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines will be leading the discussions on the new or rebooted carrier, he explained, adding that an aviation consultant will be needed to help them establish a framework.
“We have taken a decision between those countries on the margins that we are going to address the issue of a regional air carrier of some kind. It may well be the revival of LIAT in some form or other,” he said. “But it has to be done quickly.”
LIAT was primarily funded by the governments of Barbados, the main shareholder, as well as Antigua & Barbuda, where it is headquartered, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Dominica, but since the cash-strapped pan-Caribbean carrier entered into court-appointed administration in 2020, they have not been able to reach agreement on how to settle outstanding financial obligations.
The prime minister of Saint Lucia, Philip Pierre, agreed that a regional airline - LIAT or a new airline - is needed to facilitate free movement in the Caribbean. Also speaking at the conference, he said that movement was being hindered by the absence of reliable and affordable transportation infrastructure. Market forces from beyond the region should not be involved in the project, however.
“We have not only closed our air and sea spaces to business expansion and growth for our local investors but we have also surrendered the future of our unification efforts to the whims of service providers whose only interest is profit,” he lamented. “CARICOM needs LIAT, or CARICOM needs a better version of LIAT.”
While a communiqué issued at the end of the event did not mention the issue specifically, it did stress “the need for a significantly enhanced transportation system that can bolster food security and deepen regional integration” and that the member states’ leaders had “agreed to establish a Working Group to provide oversight of the project which will include representatives from the governments of Barbados, Grenada, Guyana, and Trinidad and Tobago as well as the CARICOM Secretariat, CARICOM Private Sector Organisation (CPSO), and the Caribbean Development Bank.” This could, however, concentrate more on a fast-ferry service rather than air transport.
According to the ch-aviation fleets and ch-aviation capacities modules, LIAT currently operates three ATR42-600s, deploying them on 17 scheduled routes, all but two of which have 1x or 2x weekly frequencies.
