Dear Editor,

There was a time in Jamaica’s history when our image in aviation was one to envy. We always took great pride in seeing the colourful Air Jamaica aircraft at an airport. I also made it a deliberate choice to fly with Air Jamaica.

The decline and demise of the airline is well-documented. It was sad to see it go. What is even more painful is to watch its successor Caribbean Airlines (CAL) struggle to establish a position of dominance in the Jamaican market. A recent report in the Jamaica Observer notes that American, US Airways, Delta, and JetBlue had greater load factors on major US-Jamaica routes than CAL. They are also experiencing declines out of Trinidad as well. This is a gut-wrenching thing to read, although not at all surprising.

None of the four airlines kicking CAL’s butt are considered preferred carriers in the US. While they have varying market shares, they are not the leaders in the US market in terms of customer perception and profitability. However, they walk into Jamaica and unseat the incumbent. Why?

I’ll provide two reasons. First, CAL does not place employees “first”. Second, CAL does not appeal to what’s important to many travellers. The success of low-cost carriers SouthWest and WestJet are well-documented. Both airlines have challenged the status quo profitably, even in times of recession. Both airlines built their success on being truly focused on their employees and their customers. Both companies had leadership that understood and acknowledged that having engaged employees was a critical part of their business success equation. WestJet developed an “ownership” mantra that enlisted employees at all levels to have a deep emotional investment in the airline. Additionally, they built a business model that appealed to the travelling public because they knew the airlines cared about their customers. To that extent, they were able to build a loyal following that was not easily manipulated by the promotions and offers of other carriers. I will wager that CAL does not have these factors working within the airline.

Clearly CAL does not have that degree of loyalty in its customer base, hence the steady decline. It is likely the leadership spends time focused on business analytics, traditional marketing, and other stuff which are not likely to solve the problems. I would recommend a major strategy-change based on a model developed by Patrick Lencioni. The core strategies would be geared at becoming an organisation with truly engaged employees and one that delivers an outstanding customer experience. Lencioni wrote a book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, in which he outlined the issues that really kill most organisations. Conversely, it also gives a good sense of what makes others truly successful. If CAL is to recover and be an accepted ambassador of the Caribbean — a great reason to exist — there is a lot of work to be done. Getting one’s butt whipped by organisations that are not superstars in their own backyard is by no means something to be taken lightly. It should also serve as motivation for all at CAL to build a platform to recover ground and restore some of the glory of the good old days of the Lovebird. If four average airlines can justify operating in the Jamaican marketplace, it could represent opportunities that CAL is missing. Fighting on price and schedule is not likely to change the current trend, neither will asking the taxpayers for subsidies of $1.4b over two years. The answer rests in the extent to which the culture and core strategies are going to change.

Donnovan Simon

donnovans@hotmail.com