Mr Mike Conway has been trying to play catch-up in the public relations fiasco that he, his colleague directors at Air Jamaica and the Government created by leaving it to the British press and Virgin Atlantic Airways to inform the Jamaican people first about the codeshare agreement between both airlines.

Over Monday and Tuesday this week, Mr Conway, Air Jamaica's president and chief executive officer, was making the rounds in the Jamaican media, trying to save face after it became clear that the Government and the airline's directors really have little regard for the national carrier's stakeholders - the Jamaican people.

We are told that the news that Air Jamaica was giving up its London route was first filtered to leaders of the Jamaican community in England in a confidential briefing by our high commissioner to London, Mr Burchell Whiteman, two weeks ago. Then, last week Tuesday, the Telegraph newspaper in London reported on the codeshare arrangement, as well as Air Jamaica's sale of its landing and gate slots at Heathrow.

The Jamaican Press' efforts to get a confirmation or denial of the Telegraph report yielded no success. In the case of this newspaper, Mr Robert Pickersgill, the minister with portfolio responsibility for transportation, directed all queries to the finance minister, Dr Omar Davies.

"Any comment on whether that is so or not would have to come through the minister of finance," Minister Pickersgill was reported as saying in our lead story carried on May 23.
Minister Davies was in a meeting and could not be reached for comment, and Mr Dennis Morrison, the chairman of the Airports Authority of Jamaica, while admitting to having knowledge of the Telegraph article, said it was a matter for Air Jamaica to comment on.

Of course, Air Jamaica officials with authority to speak on the issue were unavailable for comment. In fact, they didn't surface until Monday, after Virgin Atlantic president Sir Richard Branson informed the Jamaican people, via a press release, that his airline had signed off on the deal and that he thought it was the best decision for Jamaican travellers and the Jamaican economy.

Whether that will be so is left to be seen, as we await the October 28 start of Virgin's London/Kingston service and the airline's stated commitment to "work hard to grow the market with a view to increasing frequency".

The country, therefore, cannot yet make any judgement on the wisdom, or lack thereof, of this codeshare agreement. What we cannot fathom, however, is the perceived need for secrecy in this whole operation, particularly coming from a Government whose chief executive officer, Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller, has vowed that her administration will be open and transparent in all its dealings.

But even after Air Jamaica was forced into publicly acknowledging the deal, the airline, we see, has chosen to cherry-pick the information it provides to the Jamaican people. So the price for which it sold its Heathrow slots to Virgin, the duration of the codeshare agreement, and the revenue split from the codeshare are still shrouded in secrecy.

Our question is, why? The Government, we feel, not only has a duty to share this information with the country, it also needs to explain the reason for the veil of secrecy and apologise to the people it was elected to serve.

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