Prime Minister Mia Mottley is eagerly awaiting a report from the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) on LIAT to determine what Barbados’ next move will be regarding any investment into a regional carrier.
In the meantime, however, Mottley said her administration was putting measures in place to help with the challenges being faced by travellers within the Caribbean Community (CARICOM).
In January of this year, CDB officials disclosed that the Barbados-based financial institution would be carrying out a study on regional airlift after it was approached by several Caribbean governments to do so.
“I look forward to seeing the report but suffice to say, we could not and cannot take action.
“We have said that we are waiting to hear the facts. CDB has been doing a study and until such time that we receive all the facts, we can’t make any comment one way or the other,” Mottley said when asked if Barbados was planning to invest in a new airline for the Caribbean, during a recent press conference at Ilaro Court.
Since the collapse of LIAT in 2020 due to high debt and the negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been speculation that Barbados and other Caribbean countries could be looking to start a new airline.
In 2013, the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) provided a re-fleeting loan totalling some US$65 million to the four main LIAT shareholder governments – Barbados, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica and St Vincent and the Grenadines – to assist with a fleet modernisation project.
Mottley, who noted that her administration was in the process of settling any anomalies associated with the recent settlements to ex-LIAT workers, said she was “a little concerned that we still pay the Caribbean Development Bank every quarter for the money for LIAT”.
“We have three planes that were owned by LIAT. All of those things will go into determining whether we can recoup anything from them to minimise the losses to CDB so that we can then look at what is necessary for any new regional airline to supplement those that are there. I think only one of those three planes is flying now,” said Mottley.
In mid-2020, when the main shareholder governments agreed to sell three planes owned by the airline, it was noted that there could be a shortfall of over US$40 million that would be shared proportionally by the shareholder governments and they would have to service those loans until they were retired.
In the meantime, however, Mottley said Barbados was trying to better facilitate the Turks and Caicos-based airline InterCaribbean Airways, which has been having some challenges in recent times, especially as it relates to cancellations.
“I believe that once they can set up their maintenance operation here and keep a plane here rather than having to fly back up to Turks all the time to deal with planes, that will improve the quality of service they deliver,” she said.
Mottley said her Government and the Trinidad and Tobago-based Caribbean Airlines have reached an agreement that would allow that airline to use Barbados “as an expanded hub going forward”.
“That is critical. That will mean more space for them at the airport as well as more staff in Barbados, I suspect, and more routes coming through Barbados. So we have two major regional airlines there and we have an expanded relationship with Air Antilles and we have a new relationship to come now with two northern Caribbean airlines,” reported Mottley.
“So against that backdrop, we are not necessarily starting from the ground. We also have from Suriname, Fly Allways, which is looking to cater to the northern Caribbean – from here to Jamaica to Cuba and of course to Guyana, Suriname and the Southern Caribbean.”
