LIAT will not be re-locating to Barbados – Antigua & Barbuda PM

Antigua & Barbuda has injected a further US$400,000 in regional carrier Leeward Islands Air Transport (LIAT) even as the twin-island nation prime minister vowed that the airline headquarters will not be moved from St. John’s to Barbados.

Gaston Browne has confirmed to reporters that the cash injection was made last week as part of US$10 million that his country has promised to deliver to the airline by the end of 2015.

Speaking on the sidelines of the 36th regular meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) which began yesterday, Browne insisted that all plans to relocate the LIAT headquarters from Antigua & Barbuda had been scrapped.

The major shareholder governments – Barbados, Dominica and St Vincent & the Grenadines – had earlier this year, announced a plan to shift LIAT’s fleet base to Barbados to focus on the more lucrative southern Caribbean and to reduce its staff by 180 to help restore the airline to financial stability.

However, Browne said all claims of relocation is merely “idle talk”.

He stressed that Antigua & Barbuda has not swayed in its commitment to the airline that has been consistently losing money. “That idle chatter has ceased, if not for the time being, then permanently. At the end of the day, Antigua & Barbuda struggled with LIAT for about 5 decades and we did not differentiate on the viability of routes. We made sure that all of the countries in the Caribbean, especially in the OECS (Organization of Eastern Caribbean States) were serviced to ensure there was connectivity so people could move throughout the region,” the prime minister said.

“I recognize that its losses have created some considerations, and rightfully so, because those losses would have increased exponentially. But within recent times we have seen some improvements and we continue to remain hopeful for an efficiently run LIAT.”

The Antiguan leader said more countries of the OECS have shown interest in subsiding the carrier, which he suggested may continue to operate at a loss due to the “nature of the airline business”.

“I’m not making a case here to suggest that LIAT should not run efficiently; it ought to. But we have to look at the market structure itself, which would mitigate against LIAT making an overall profit,” Browne added. -(CMC)