A new Saint Lucian owned airline has announced plans to introduce direct services between OECS territories and is seeking investors to join their team.
The new airline dubbed Go Fly Airlines is owned by Saint Lucian pilot Mario Reyes.
Reyes said that his company will be speaking with various governments and private companies to get on board.
During a demonstration flight on Monday, Reyes told the media that his company is looking to acquire five 12-seat aircraft at a cost of $3 million each.
Isn’t that the same gentleman, who was a pilot and shareholder of Helen Air of St. Lucia, which went bust? I wonder if the investors of that venture ever saw their money back?
It makes no sense to have all these little airline poping up
All over the place
I will not fly in no little plane where you can see the pilot
and what’s make it worse is when they say to you please balance the plane
Little planes like hummingbird and the lot are not for me
Liat may be late sometimes but I prefer wait on them
The governments need to come together and improve liat
These little airplanes are not comfortable.
For you preacher we’ll arrange a flying chariot, how about that?
LIAT is not a Goliath either. It only has 9 airplanes with a total max. seating capacity of 512. However, it is overmanned. As of Feb. last year it had some 800 employees, which was to be cut down to 650. Even if that reduction in staff took place (..and I’m not sure it ever did) it still means that the airline has more than 1 employee per passenger seat. It is grossly inefficient and poorly managed. If a company in the private sector were run this way it would have long been bankrupt and liquidated. I wish we would stop pretending that it is a social service they are providing because it is a damned expensive one and therefore defeats that purpose. I’m sure that private enterprise could, do a better job.
This is ignorance. Whether a big plane or a small plane, they are all prone to accidents.
I once traveled from Canada via B/dos. We were told LIAT was late and later, there no flights.
One came from T & T to fly us to Guadeloupe. We were told another plane will be waiting for us in Guadeloupe and that, as soon as the plane landed on the tarmac we are to go immediately to it.
It was a small plane. I am certain it was not a LIAT plane. LIAT may have chartered it. While flying on it I could see the corals, reefs and rocks/stones. Well, we arrived safely in Canefield. Our luggage did not arrive with us. Some of us got it next day; others the day after or later in the week.
When I heard there was no flight from B/dos to D/ca, I asked to speak to the Manager. I told him to get a flight out that, I and a few family members are not over-nighting in B/dos. This occurred a few years ago. I suppose with LIAT’s regulation today, we may have to overnight.
I do not believe the debate is about whether large or small aircrafts are prone to accident, as a matter of fact aircrafts are not prone to accidents, though accidents do occur, no matter how careful humans are! I think the issue is whether or not aircrafts with less carrying capacity than LIAT will serve Dominica in any useful way.
My contention is this; it will be another waste of time!
The resolve for Dominica’s present, and to be continued dilemma is to build an International Airport. People are not interested in flying from an International destination, on a 747, and larger aircraft to land in Antigua, St. Kitts, Grenada, St. Lucia, Barbados, and St. Vincent, to get aboard bits of crap like LIAT and the rubbish this St. Lucia guy is pushing to fly to Dominica.
If and when Skerrit government, or any other build an International Airport, in the country; LIAT and all the other crap like the little (foo-foo) Humming Bird and LIAT will become history in our country!
We…
We need a better way of life in Dominica, and an International Airport is part of that life!
Whoever you are, you are not making any sense, on one side of your mouth you are talking against small airlines such as Humming Bird; nevertheless, on the other side of your mouth you favor LIAT which to me is a lost cause, Dominica Government should not be using taxpayers money to keep a none profitable airline in the sky.
Humming Bird holds five or six people that cannot be considered an airline. Such aircrafts are used by private individuals for weekend joy flying. Case and point: I worked for a company called Glutton Engineers Magnetic’s. I met a black guy who worked in our metal machine-shop. Just an ordinary guy; It was Friday afternoon, the guy asks me “how would you like to go to Las Vegas tomorrow.” I responded I am not prepared for the drive. To my surprise, that Black boy told me “we are not driving!” I have my own airplane, sitting at Northrop Airport.
It turned out, the guy has an airplane as large as the largest of anything LIAT has flying! Some carries…
Have not heard about that in st.Lucia yet…..
See the 27 Sept. edition of “The Voice”, your island’s leading newspaper.
Agreed
This would be great, good competition for Liat. we are tired of Liat. I hope the governments of these island agree to this, competition is good.
12 seats that is going back wards we will never get to DA are you guys for real. Is not every drum tgat veats is music bravo. Those of you that stiffling the gov put your hands in your pocket and build a co for Dominica dont wait on the government if you know it is needed.
I’m sure there’s probably a need for this service. It makes me wonder what are we doing in Dominica to improve our situation besides selling passports and traveling the globe?
This is confusing because Go Fly airlines was established by BA in 1993 as a budget carrier to be subsequently taken over by Easyjet of the U.K. I would suggest mr. Reyes thinks of another name so golden oldies like myself do not get their brains muddled thinking that this perhaps is a Caribbean venture of Easyjet.
Anyway, I wish him better luck than previous airline St. Lucia Airways and its successor Helen Air, which operated a mix of aircraft including a Beech 1900 and BN Islander if my memory serves me right.
Today’e aircraft engines are very reliable, but as with everything else, things do go wrong. You will not see me flying on a single engine aircraft over the open ocean, the same way I will not go way offshore on a single engine boat.
On another note, anyone with half a brain would NEVER put any money in a airline based in the Caribbean. This is a recipe for disaster.
I totally agree with you!
Having twelve seater aircraft flying is a waste of time; why would anybody involve themselves in something like that when we live in the 22nd (twenty-second) century; in an era where commercial jet aircrafts are the order of the day.
We have long past the supersonic stage of flying, there are aircrafts which can fly to England from the Caribbean in less than five hours, a distance covered by any commercial passenger jet today, which total duration of flight last for no more than eight hours!
I noticed you got all thumbs down thus far; I know for a fact they came from the low, and shallow minded people who are still stock in the past, they like their old Christmas toys, and have no desire to move on to bigger and better things, and that is the reason they keep voting Skerrit into power, because they know his mind is backward, hence he will help them to remain in the darkness of the tenth, and thirteenth century!
If you live in the 22nd century, please let us know how things turn out a hundred years from now.
“stuck”
Those who gave him thumbs down are not shallow-minded people. You are underestimating people’s intelligence and are over-exaggerating. They are more intelligent than you. The pot always calls the kettle black. When will you cease insulting people who do not deserve it? One day you will pay for it.
People die in vehicular accidents. A wrong turn or one too quickly, even slowly could do it. Some are in the wrong place at the wrong time, and they are shot by a stray bullet. Some are mistaken identity, to name a few.
Vehicles run off the road and hit pedestrians. They are what we call freak accidents, enough to write a book about.
This reminds me two days ago in Ontario, a worker was driving in a vehicle which carried tar. An accident occurred. Somehow the tar fell on him. He is badly burned and in the hospital. I have not yet heard about his recent condition.
For all what you stated, you are narrow-minded and shallow-minded.
Steve we are no longer in the 21st Century, by the time we went past 2001 we entered the 22nd century; I do not have to tell you how to calculate that, since you once told me you have some big degree I do not know in what!
Unless you can calculate that for yourself, you simply have to take my word to be fact; anything less you can tell me in what century you believe the world now exists!
It is your opinion and how you feel. We must respect it. However, consider some people die in their sleep and also suddenly while awake.
Whenever we are traveling, we should pray to God and ask him to protect us.
This reminds me, once returning to Canada, from Canefield to Antigua via LIAT, while flying over an area we experienced very strong turbulence. The plane went through the clouds and kept dipping. It was scary. I commenced praying and did not cease.
Since I would be traveling in the afternoon, the morning I went to early Mass at the Roseau Cathedral. I still prayed to God to assist all of us on the flight.
When we passed the turbulence, the pilot announced that this area usually has turbulence. This is the first time I experience such a bad turbulence. I thought the plane could have disappeared and we would never be found.
If you can find the book, “The Treasures of the Mass”, purchase it and read it. It is a small book and quite spiritually interesting. I feel its content will surprise and amaze you. You may be able to Google it.
Skerrit could have invested for 2 planes with the $8M he gave Liat..Good Idea and hope it works..hope to see more information about how to invest in the near future..
Interested effort, I am however thinking that with an established regional airline LIAT, serving us loyally for years with an experience and dedicated fleet and know how, why don’t we all come together to strengthen LIAT that can better serve us in the Caribbean,
We have seen alternative airlines coming on board only to disappear soon after but LIAT continues to be here for us. I trust LIAT, let al come together to make it better serve us all.
With jokes like that, you must write for the Caribbean edition of the The Onion.
liat has become way too expensive even after the millions of dollars the Caribbean countries have thrown at them. They continue to raise their ridiculously high prices and are unreliable as ever.
Ask the Caribbean Governments to lower the Airport taxes on LIAT TICKETS. LIAT continues to be the sacrifice to ensure that other airlines are subsidized.
We have come under the mercy of high ticket prices to pay for American Airlines operations in the region. that is what is happening. Who owns LIAT? certainly not the little man. If you guess right the very same people hide behind the Airline’s inefficiencies and refuse to tell us what the extra monies earned are used for.
Am with LIAT.
you got to be a joke… strengthen liat.. hell no.. liat need competition, they take advantage of us for too long.. if i was more financially independent i would invest… we need more options so that sole servers dont use and abuse like what liat have done and continue to do even after all caribbean govt and private sectors invest in them..
I say amen to that
Well said
Amen
It is backward minded, low life people like you who are satisfied with less, contented with your nothing way of life; existing in poverty, which help to keep Dominicans, and the economy of the country stagnant! You talk about LIAT loyalty to Dominica?
If LIAT was so loyal to Dominica, why did Skerrit not too long ago complained of the bad way Dominicans are treated by LIAT after he was coerce by Ralph Gonzalez to waste more ten million dollars into an airline that has been dead for more than half of a century!
Rather than you talking nonsense, trash; about LIAT’s loyalty to Dominica, demand that Skerrit find the money to build an International Airport in the country. That should be the priority, and not the crap LIAT that you believe is Dominica’s only hope.
There is no Loyalty in business, If LIAT was so loyal to Dominica, why they contemplated not flying into Dominica unless Skerrit pumped more than ten million dollars into LIAT a none profitable entity, operating for…
Carcon, that is because governments keep propping them up and they still expensive and still can not make profit. I don’t know of any country where a government owned airline was ever efficient or could make a profit, not a single one. Let Liat swim on its own and if they go broke let it be so.
In this day and age of improving air travel, you want to fly people around the Caribbean on single engine planes. Cessna grand caravanwith no rreclining wheels. I welcome the idea a hundred percent but not with single engine Cessna planes
Nothing wrong with that Cessna, which has a reliable turbo engine and I sure hope it does not come with reclining wheels! Maybe you meant retractable wheels but you know, retractable wheels come with their own problems, especially if their sensitive hydraulics fail.
no wonder why the st Lucian prime minister said he would not put a penny in liat,,they had their big plans!!! I do not mind governments want to better their countries economies,,,but don’t go about doing it the divisive way…dominica has invested in liat and do not see why dominica should back out on their investment, and I am not making any excuses for liat failures at management..which of course they should make some changes,but liat has been the backbone of Caribbean flight with no major incidents..wishing liat the best…all they need to do , is get their acts together.
Hurry up come see
This is the best NEWS I have heard all month….St.Lucia folks are forward thinking.
Let us see how LIAT reacts as they are forever reactive.
It’s not going to last for long. The planes are too small, no way and Caribbean Governments are going to use that as their little whore. I suggest that LIAT pull out of St. Lucia and let them alone use their little mosquito around the region.
This is the best NEWS I have heard all month……Forward thinking people in St.Lucia.