Will the new regional airline created by the proposed LIAT/BWIA merger get permission today from Caribbean leaders to take off?
By Albert BrandfordThat?s the $64 000 question which is expected to be answered when four Caribbean leaders, including Barbados? Prime Minister Owen Arthur, sit down behind closed doors from 10 a.m. at the Savannah Hotel for ?a decisive meeting? on the future of the two cash-strapped airlines.
Having missed the July 1 deadline for the startup of the proposed single airline, informed sources said, the deeply divided Caribbean leaders were now to plot a new course essentially trying to reach accommodations with each other that would bring some hope and stability to regional air transport.
?They are still very divided on what to do about LIAT,? said one regional observer, ?the enormity of the problem is such that unless they get bridging finance for LIAT they may have to virtually suspend its operations.?
Driving the issue, one local official said, was a recognition by all concerned that a functioning regional air transport system was essential to the success of the pending CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME).
Officials said Barbados had agreed to act as ?facilitator? for the meeting to be chaired by St Vincent?s Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves, who heads CARICOM?s Prime Ministerial Sub-Committee on Air Transport.
The key figure, however, will be Prime Minister Patrick Manning, of oil-rich Trinidad and Tobago, in whose hands rests the future of BWIA and possibly regional air transportation itself, while it is also expected that Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer, of Antigua and Barbuda, which is the linchpin for LIAT, may also be in attendance.
The focus of today?s session will be a presentation by consultants for the Trinidad and Tobago government, the Arlington, Virginia-based firm of Simat Helliesen & Eichner, Inc. (SH&E), a leading international aviation consulting company, which has just submitted its report.
It had been commissioned to examine exactly how BWIA should be restructured as part of the merger plan. As such, it would have looked at the configuration, appropriate management structure and shareholding of the regional airline that would emerge, as well as funding requirements for the venture.
In June last year, the heads of Government of four countries involved agreed to set up a new holding company, Caribbean International Airways Holding Ltd, (CIAH), registered in Port-of-Spain, which was originally scheduled to be formally launched in 12 months.
