An aerospace engineer is expressing optimism that regional carrier LIAT can be revived.
However, said Professor of aerospace engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, John-Paul Clarke, it will require political will and a short-term incentive scheme from governments.
At the same time, Clarke said he believed Caribbean governments should work together to attract wide-bodied long-haul planes to the region and introduce incentives to allow small regional carriers to provide connectivity to the various islands.
“That would help intra-regional travel because that connectivity there would become a bridge and you know there are lots of small carriers. LIAT would be resurrected in some form. I have faith that will happen. So there is lots of potential there,” he said.
“We need to take a holistic approach and the governments of the region have to think about whether they are going to do it themselves or provide the incentives for the private sector to do it. But that is something I wish we could do sooner rather than later because convenience and connectivity are key,” he told an aviation panel discussion during the recent Global Tourism Resilience and Sustainability conference at the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus, in Jamaica.
The aerospace engineer and researcher later expanded on this in an interview with Barbados TODAY when he contended that there was enough demand for travel within the Caribbean for LIAT to be revived.
Antigua-based LIAT 1974 Limited collapsed due to heavy debt that was compounded by the dreaded COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 when countries implemented restrictions to stop the spread of the virus that halted travel and resulted in millions of travel and hospitality workers losing their jobs globally.
The unprofitable airline, which has been suffering from financial woes for several years, was liquidated in mid-2020 and is currently under administration by the Antigua and Barbuda government.
“There is demand for travel in the region, and even though you have Winair and InterCaribbean Airways, there is still enough demand that you are going to need another carrier,” said Clarke as he pointed out that LIAT 2020 had at least two working aircraft.
He added: “I think the government in Antigua is very keen to maintain their operations from their skills base and all the maintenance facilities they have and things they have built up. So, with the combination of political will and demand and you have the aeroplanes it can work”.
Over the years, there have been calls for regional governments whose countries benefit from LIAT’s services to provide financial support.
Clarke said he believed a subsidy scheme could be put in place.
“You can do some essential air services type agreements like you have in the US, for example, where they subsidise to help them build back up. The subsidies, in my view, should be designed to taper off over a while. I think being able to do something like that would allow an airline that is truly optimised. Sometimes when you have long-term subsidies you end up with bad economic behaviours,” he explained.
The issue of regional air connectivity was highlighted during the start of the conference when Barbados’ Minister of Tourism Ian Gooding-Edghill addressed his ministerial colleagues virtually, noting that in addition to “other pressing matters and the Estimates that we have”, he was unable to attend the conference physically due to “some travel logistics” challenges.
During the aviation panel discussion, it was noted that the major challenges in getting long-haul flights to the Caribbean were the lack of outbound traffic, the need for better connection flows, as well as runway and weight capacity restrictions in some countries.
Clarke insisted that collaboration between small carriers in the region would be critical when 300-seater aircraft from Asia, the Middle East and Africa make their way to the Caribbean.
“The whole idea is a mechanism design. So, how can governments put incentives in place for the carriers in the region to cooperate, each getting a fair share, but then provide the connectivity that will then be attractive to Emirates [for example], to say we will come to one place in the Caribbean and then you can be a feeder for us and we can distribute the traffic, and that will then subsidise our intra-regional traffic,” explained Clarke.
“In the end, we as a region have to figure out a way to collaborate. Either it is going to be a government-to-government thing or it has to be a government or even one of the development bank-initiated subsidy schemes or market design.”
Clarke told Barbados TODAY that Antigua and Barbuda was “in a great spot” to be a connecting hub for the Eastern Caribbean.
“Not that I am promoting Antigua but I am just looking at it from a purely rational basis, but any of the countries with long runways on the eastern side will be a great connecting point to Africa. The question is where should it be,” he said.
“It is all about the economics. If you can make a direct flight work you do a direct flight, if you can’t do it then you make a hub. How many people from Sierra Leone are going to want to come to Barbados in a given week, are there enough to fill up an aeroplane? But if you add up all the Caribbean islands and you could actually feed them out of there, then everybody could get traffic. That is the whole point,” he contended.
