NOW that Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago have approved operational commercial licences for REDjet airline, the newest low-fare airline to compete on intra-regional routes, questions of relevance persist.

On such pertinent question is, why didn’t the governments directly concerned consider, at the outset, to engage in consultations to ensure commonality in approach to avoid the conflicts and the bitter public verbal wrangles that surfaced?

Also, why didn’t Barbados, in particular, consider it relevant to at least exercise an initiative to involve — as current major shareholder of island-hopping LIAT — in consultation with at least the two other shareholders of significance, namely Antigua and Barbuda, and St Vincent and the Grenadines, aware as it must be of an inevitable contradiction in supporting both REDjet and the regional carrier?

There appears to be growing contradictions involving some governments in our Caribbean Community that, on one hand, keep repeating support for LIAT, while on the other are anxious to have REDjet as a primary challenger on traditional routes in the Eastern Caribbean.

Personally, it is difficult to embrace claims that both Caribbean Airlines (CAL) — owned by Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica — and REDjet — whatever the precise composition of its ownership profile – have a vested interest in eventually squeezing out of business the old-faithful LIAT that has been with us for some 55 years.

Yet, the contradictions in the nature of the embrace by some Eastern Caribbean governments professing to be both committed to LIAT’s survival and at the same time enthusiastically welcoming REDjet — without any known critical assessment of its bona fides and performance — could well result in unexpected and undesirable problems for dependable regional air transportation.

Harsh realities

For, as this columnist and others have previously noted, facing commercial competition over the years from start-up carriers has been a virtual way of life for LIAT, including the likes of BWExpress and CaribExpress, plus the two carriers Caribbean Star and Sun it had to take over from the since disgraced Texan tycoon Allen Stanford.

Coping with non-subsidised rising aviation fuel cost (from which CAL benefits) and maintaining its intra-regional services with 18 aircraft with some 150 flights daily in servicing 22 destinations, has been very challenging for LIAT’s survival.

This is not the kind of record that ‘start-up’ airline to which competitors can point. And it is one of the harsh realities in the ongoing LIAT/REDjet saga.

Currently, questions being raised pertaining to REDjet include who or from what source(s) does it get its primary funding, including subsidy to help cover ever-rising aviation fuel.

The current three main shareholders of LIAT are the governments of Antigua and Barbuda, St Vincent and the Grenadines, and Barbados. The latter as the major of the trio, had negotiated with REDjet to set up an operational base in the country with a reported 51 per cent Barbadian ownership that is yet to be publicly explained.

There has never been a prior meeting of the trio of lead LIAT shareholders on the way forward prior to the registration of REDjet to operate from Grantley Adams International Airport. Nor, as far as is known, has there been any effort to promote a wider regional consensus on the approval of operational licences for start-up airlines.

Seeing ‘red’

In the case of REDjet, which acquired its two aircraft from a United States corporation, it still cannot fly into the USA as, according to the US Federal Aviation Authority (FAA), Barbados is yet to meet regulation standards, which prevent Barbados-based airlines (such as REDjet) from entering the USA.

In the meanwhile, if REDjet really hopes to generate region-wide public support, to the disadvantage of LIAT, as well as CAL, then it surely cannot afford to replicate the poor service being complained against by passengers seeking to take advantage of its comparative low fares on the Guyana/Barbados route.

Following earlier reports in the Guyanese and other media of the region that featured angry complaints from frustrated stranded passengers at Guyana’s Cheddi Jagan International Airport, the Barbados Daily Nation reported in its Monday edition (August 8) under the headline “Seeing red over REDjet service”, on expressed bitter experiences of passengers that booked to travel from Guyana to Barbados, but failed to make the journey.

What is quite surprising in this scenario is that the REDjet owners (about whose identity questions persist) have been engaged in a publicity blitz about the reliability of the service awaiting passengers on the Barbados/Guyana route, even as it was intensifying efforts to secure operational licences from Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica.

Just last week, the prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda, Baldwin Spencer, went public with a plea to his fellow Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community to help in the funding of LIAT.

Prime Minister Spencer’s call last month for a wider funding partnership — beyond the three primary shareholders — (Barbados, Antigua and Barbuda and St Vincent and the Grenadines) — came against the backdrop of controversies surrounding the bid by REDjet to now access airline markets within the wider sub-region of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS).

It is of significance that neither current CARICOM chairman, Prime Minister Denzil Douglas of St Kitts and Nevis, nor St Lucia’s Prime Minister Stephenson King, new chairman of the OECS Authority, has indicated any interest in a funding arrangement for LIAT as urged by Prime Minister Spencer.

However, should the contradictions of some Eastern Caribbean governments (now to include Dominica, and St Kitts and Nevis) persist in trying to befriend REDjet while hoping to retain the goodwill of LIAT, the two countries likely to be worse affected could be Antigua and Barbuda, and St Vincent and the Grenadines.

In the case of Antigua and Barburda, the bulk of LIAT’s employees are located there; and in relation to St Vincent and the Grenadines it heavily depends — in the absence of an international airport — on the regional carrier. Its government also has strong doubts about REDjet’s capacity to provide the services needed and its long-term economic viability. Time will tell.

For now, REDjet has the challenge of resolving the grievances of affected passengers on the Guyana-Barbados route — while LIAT must cope with the consequences of having to re-introduce its earlier fuel surcharge on tickets as a direct result of the latest hike in aviation fuel to keep its fleet of aircraft serving the region.

Governments’ ‘Double-speak’ on LIAT/REDjet Airlines

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