PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad (CMC) – The state-owned Caribbean Airlines (CAL) recorded losses estimated at US$70 million last year, Finance Minister Larry Howai has said.

He told the Senate on Tuesday that the figure does not include the US$40 million in fuel subsidy to the airline even though he insists that the airline remains solvent.

“Government has made certain provisions for the airline to restructure its balance sheet. One of the things they have done is to use a lot of their cash to actually do acquisitions of the planes and I have instructed a new restructuring of the balance sheet where you would need to borrow and replace the cash which was being used.

“It’s better to leverage the assets rather than leave it unencumbered but having the company incurring significant debt obligations,” Howai added.

But Opposition legislator Dr Lester Henry said he was “astounded that the minister could describe as solvent a company which cannot cover its costs and no money in the bank”.

But Howai insisted that while the company may be cash-strapped but it had assets.

“Perhaps the decisions made in respect of how those assets would be leveraged and what kind of leveraging you have for the balance sheet were not addressed perhaps in the way that others might have done,”

Howai said the preliminary unaudited figures showed US$32 million of the $70 million loss was incurred by the Air Jamaica route, with the London route also accounting for a major part of the losses.

Caribbean Airlines, which began operations in 2007, acquired Air Jamaica in 2011. The Jamaican Government has a 16 per cent stake in the Trinidadian air carrier.