Business
CARICOM leaders under pressure to support LIAT airline
Caribbean Community (CARICOM) leaders are being urged to support a loan application by the regional airline LIAT (Leeward Islands Air Transport) for funds to undertake a re-fleeting exercise so as to sustain its operations and improve services.
A CARICOM Secretariat statement said that regional transport ministers, who met in St Vincent & the Grenadines last week, have agreed to put forward to the regional leaders a proposal that they support the LIAT loan application to the Barbados-based Caribbean Development Bank.
The statement gave no details regarding the costs of the re-fleeting exercise, but LIAT, which flies to 21 destinations in the CARICOM region and has 1,000 flights weekly, said it was seeking to acquire French-made 48 and 63 seater aircraft.
The statement said the transport ministers had also recommended that air transport services be included among the group of essential services and the necessary legislation be enacted to give effect to this reality.
Last month, LIAT’s Chief Executive Officer Ian Brunton said the aviation industry should also be classified as an essential service, with legislated restricted rights to strike.
Brunton said that tourism is the mainstay of the majority of the region’s economies and air services connect the countries of the Caribbean, feeding that primary revenue stream.
Further, all the institutions which help to forge the integration of the peoples of the region are dependent on aviation services for their proper functioning.
“I, therefore, submit that aviation services should be treated in a different way to other industries and it is important that governments throughout the region act now to list aviation services as essential,” Brunton said. -(CMC)