— while focused on CARICOM/Mexico ties
Analysis by Rickey Singh
ALTHOUGH it is not an official agenda issue for this weekend’s meetings in Barbados by CARICOM leaders and ministers, it would be surprising if the ongoing concerns over the unhealthy competition on regional routes between the Trinidad and Tobago-owned Caribbean Air Lines Ltd (CAL) and the intra-regional carrier, LIAT, fail to be addressed. This would also be the case in relation to concerns that have arisen over Trinidad and Tobago’s decision to retain the Privy Council while seeking access to the appellate jurisdiction of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), but only for criminal matters.
The primary purpose of the two-day meeting in Barbados, which gets underway today, has to do with the scheduled Second Summit of CARICOM and Mexico Heads of Government.
But the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago,  Kamla Persad-Bissessar,  intends to use the opportunity in a pre-summit caucus of Community leaders to also explain the rationale for her government’s phased access to the appellate jurisdiction of the CCJ, prior to severing ties with the British Privy Council.
This is in sharp contrast to Jamaica’s recent announcement of plans to scuttle relations with the Privy Council by year-end and access both the original and appellate jurisdiction of the CCJ during 2013; and the T&T’s Prime Minister may encounter a challenging prospect to win hearts and minds for her government’s phased access of the CCJ’s jurisdiction, rather than going all the way like Jamaica.
So far as the CAL/LIAT competition is concerned, what has triggered new interest in the costly intra-regional routes conflict between the two airlines is a statement last Monday by Trinidad and Tobago’s Opposition Leader of the People’s National Movement (PNM) calling for an end to such a policy that’s inimical to CAL — and financially injurious also for LIAT.
It is not easy to be supportive of positions often adopted by the PNM’s leader (who succeeded Patrick Manning), given a known penchant for feisty interventions that can obscure the substance of his arguments.
Nevertheless, it is felt that the flamboyant politician of long years deserves commendation and support, across political boundaries, for his position, as outlined earlier this week against State-owned CAL — now integrated with Air Jamaica — competing with the 56-year-old LIAT on intra-regional routes.
Indeed, merit has been recognised in Rowley’s criticism at the previous Chairman of CAL, George Nicholas, for engaging in a myopic management approach to purchase ATR aircraft to compete with LIAT on intra-regional routes. That development was to further contribute to huge financial losses by CAL, and had earlier been lamented by the T&T Finance Minister, Winston Dookeran.
Rowley’s call for CAL to focus on becoming commercially viable on long-haul, foreign routes rather than competing with LIAT on short intra-regional routes would readily resonate with those, in and out of Trinidad and Tobago, who have been advancing  such arguments for many years.

Other advocates
Among them would certainly be the former long-serving Secretary-General of the Caribbean Tourism Organisation (CTO), Jean Holder, now current chairman of LIAT.
As the Barbados Government’s nominee for the LIAT chairmanship, it is understandable why Holder prefers public silence on Rowley’s position against non-competition by CAL on regional routes.
But Holder’s advocacy against such competition, as well as arguments in favour of a common airline in the service of the Caribbean for both regional and international routes, have long been documented.
In this context, it is perhaps ironical that Rowley’s firm stand that the government of Prime Minister Kamla Persad Bissessar evolves a policy for CAL to focus on being commercially viable on foreign routes instead of competing, at a loss, with LIAT on intra-regional routes, should have come at this time of continuing silence on the issue by governments in the Eastern Caribbean — including Barbados.
St. Kitts and Nevis Minister of Tourism and Foreign Trade, and current chairman of the CTO’s Ministerial Council, Richard Skerrit, told me in a brief telephone interview that while he appreciates the argument advanced by Rowley, the reality is that so long as complications prevail over a single, or common, Caribbean airline, then “competition on regional routes would remain the name of the game…”

Eyes on Barbados
Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, who has lead responsibility among CARICOM Heads of Government for Civil Aviation and Regional Air Transportation, was unavailable for a comment.
However, an opportunity to deal with this and related regional air transportation issues — for instance, the political/business trauma over the collapse of a short-lived REDjet airline —  would be this weekend’s meetings in Barbados.
Host Prime Minister, Freundel Stuart, who has publicly expressed support for his Trinidad and Tobago’s counterpart’s bold initiative to introduce a regional ferry service, can, therefore, hardly miss the opportunity to raise with her the current undesirable situation of CAL’s competition with LIAT with the resulting financial pain for both and considering governments’ involvement in their operations
There seems to be no objective reasons for Prime Minister Stuart’s not wanting to express a point of view, considering, for a start,  that Barbados is one of three major shareholders of the struggling LIAT, now 56 years old and desperately in need of a new fleet of aircraft. The two others are Antigua and Barbuda, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
In the circumstances, this weekend’s gathering of CARICOM leaders seems an appropriate time to deal with the costly problem of CAL’s competition with LIAT on intra-regional routes — a competition that is financially costly for them both.