CARICOM needs brand-new approaches to age-old regional problems (Part II)

IN my early childhood, only two airlines flew the Caribbean’s skies: British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) and British West Indian Airways (BWIA).

Others were small and private single-engine craft and sea planes. Air France and a KLM (Dutch Antillean Airlines) served the French and Dutch Antilles, respectively.

In the six decades since, BOAC became British Airways (BA), BWIA became Bee-Wee (and now Caribbean Airlines), alongside many other private airlines serving the region, but not many surviving the ‘lang haul’.

Leeward Islands Air Transport (LIAT) went through several ownership changes, from being founded as a private company in 1956 to a 75 per cent ownership by BWIA in 1957, and a 75 per cent ownership purchased in 1971 by the UK-based Court Line. In 1974, it became a fully Caribbean commercial airline operating out of Antigua and Barbuda.

The last three decades saw regional airlines challenged by the ongoing effects of externally-generated, ever-rising fuel costs and government taxes, all of which were systematically passed on to passengers. This made air travel not just unbearably costly, but also almost tortuous.

I remember those days of old when LIAT advertised a one-price round-trip to all the 23 islands it served, within 30 days, for EC $360 (US$132).

At the time, Inter-Island Air Services (IAS) charged pocket change for a flight from Saint Lucia’s Vigie Airport, in Castries, to Hewanorra Airport in Vieux Fort. On occasion, persons flew to Grenada as the sole passenger on a flight, sitting in the cockpit with the pilot.

But with Independence came demonstrations of adventurous nationalism in ways that saw newly-independent former West Indian states establishing their own ‘national’ airlines: Trinidad and Tobago’s BWIA, Air Jamaica, Guyana Airways, and Barbados’ Trident, alongside Bahamas and Belizean airlines and Surinam Airways, etc.

Meanwhile, the smaller islands that later gained nationhood (Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, Montserrat, Saint Lucia, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Vincent & the Grenadines) and the non-independent territories in the archipelago had to totally depend on LIAT.

LIAT has long been under internal pressure from within CARICOM. Successive governments, over the past six decades, have cited costs of operations, administration and outstanding debts to staff and pilots, which effectively cut-off the lifeline to ‘The Regional Airline’.

By 2000, now disgraced Texan billionaire Allen Stanford established Caribbean Star Airlines, which offered toe-to-toe competition to every LIAT destination, at one time offering tickets at ridiculously low prices, until it merged with LIAT in 2007.

But even all that wasn’t enough to sink LIAT; until ‘COVID’. ‘COVID’ effectively highlighted, in the worst ways possible, why and how regional air travel had become too expensive.

It’s not easy to fly from one CARICOM state to the next. And it’s still difficult, if not impossible, for CARICOM citizens to fly to The Bahamas and Belize without a US visa.

The ‘COVID’ effect, compounded by the fuel costs and other challenges occasioned by Ukraine War sanctions, have together exposed the region’s naked underbelly in the airline business.

But, as with many other instances, the combined ‘COVID’ and Ukraine experiences have forced today’s crop of regional leaders to come to grips with the realities of the problem, at levels they, perhaps, didn’t realise and, therefore, ignored.

CARICOM leaders, by their own personal and inherited experiences over the past few decades, know how and why the term ‘hassle-free travel’ has no place in Caribbean vocabulary today.

But they should just consider that back in the 60s, Guyana’s Premier, Dr. Cheddi Jagan was only able to visit Cuba by flying to Trinidad and Tobago to board a BOAC flight to London, then an Aeroflot from Heathrow to Moscow, then a Cubana Airlines flight from Moscow to Havana.

International airlines grounded by the pandemic have returned to recent holiday periods in Europe and the USA, with serious overbookings that led to costly cancellations that have left millions of travellers sucking sea salt on both sides of the Atlantic.

Virtually caught with their pants down by industrial action across the industry, the major international airlines are now bringing out the biggest planes to fly the most passengers at the same fuel and staff costs, mainly retired Airbus 380s and the largest Boeing equivalents.

The aim is to maximize on the opportunities coming with lifting of ‘COVID’ travel restrictions globally.

Not in the Caribbean, though! Here, the appetite for flying hasn’t recovered from pre-COVID and post-Ukraine migraine-sized cost headaches.

CARICOM leaders got a virtual related comeuppance this past weekend when it came to flying to Suriname for the 43rd Regular Meeting of CARICOM Heads of Government, each and all (except neighbouring Guyana) having to depend on today’s hardly-dependable airline schedules to get them to Paramaribo, in the shortest possible time.

The majority eventually smartly settled for a chartered flight out of Barbados to ensure their timely arrival in Paramaribo.

But even so, some leaders, catering for expecting the expected, left home since Friday to ensure they didn’t miss Sunday’s meeting in a CARICOM member state.

Ancient wisdom has it that ‘things happen for a reason’, and ‘some lessons simply take time to learn’, both of which apply to the state of regional air transport today.

It was, therefore, a fortunate coincidence that their collective effort to overcome the travel challenges getting to Paramaribo in time would have, again, forcefully driven home to each leader the importance of repairing the region’s broken air transport system, if regional unity is also to include Freedom of Movement by, and for all CARICOM citizens.

It was, therefore, for good reason that Saint Lucia Prime Minister Philip J. Pierre’s call for CARICOM to stand with and around LIAT, which drew the positive response it did from his colleagues and all gathered at the summit’s opening ceremony last night.

Regional Transport isn’t on the official 11-item Summit Agenda, but if ever there was an old problem that needs new and urgent approaches now and today, this is one subject that’s just too urgent to be treated as a sub-item under ‘Any Other Business’.