Barbados Nation ( Barbados )
19 January 2023 ( Page 4 )
Push to address problems in Caribbean air transport
THE Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) says it is encouraged to help finding a solution to the air transportation problems in the Caribbean, acknowledging that the current situation is now at crisis level in the Eastern Caribbean following the demise of regional airline LIAT in 2020.
“We don’t have to have a critical mass of political will for us to get to a harmonious solution at least. We are encouraged because at least seven governments approached us in August last year to begin the study . . . (and) at least it is the start of a process,” said CDB’s vice president, operations, Isaac Solomon. He told the bank’s annual regional news conference that the initial intervention is to “ease the pain we are feeling now and the long term intervention would be to treat with the entire . . . system that addresses the cost of transportation, addresses the regulatory aspects, addresses the bottle necks that are in place preventing
folks from moving seamlessly from country to country.”
Solomon told reporters that the CDB views the regional transportation situation as a “public good” recalling that in 1970, one of the first loans made by the region’s premier financial institution was to LIAT in the sum of US$5.8 million.
“So we have been in this game for a long time, but we are thinking we do have an opportunity now to get it right,” he added.
LIAT (1974) has since gone into liquidation after more than four decades of operation in the region. The airline is owned by the governments of Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica and St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG). Antigua and Barbuda had said previously that a decision had been taken that would allow Barbados and SVG to turn over their shares in LIAT to St John’s for EC$1.
(CMC)