The regional airline LIAT has been struggling with financial difficulties and has been under administration since July 2, 2020.
Recently, the government of Antigua and Barbuda announced its commitment to restructure and revive the airline to reintroduce it to the regional skies.
Despite facing several challenges, including unserviceable aircraft, unresolved issues for former workers, financial constraints, staff attrition, and hurricane season disruptions, LIAT 1974 Ltd managed to operate a limited schedule with 167 staff in 2023, providing services to several regional destinations.
LIAT’s major shareholders are the governments of Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. The Antigua and Barbuda government has expressed an interest in partnering with other regional governments to revive the airline for the benefit of the region’s people.
The Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), based in Barbados, will play a critical role in facilitating the arrangement among the governments, paving the way for finalizing the partnership with Air Peace, a private Nigerian airline founded in 2013.
The Antigua and Barbuda government has budgeted an estimated EC$30 million in 2024 to ensure LIAT 2020 Ltd has all the necessary aircraft and arrangements in place for the safe and efficient delivery of services to the region.
The government is optimistic about the airline’s future, believing that LIAT 2020 will emerge stronger, more efficient, sustainable, and better positioned to serve the needs of the region’s people and Caribbean neighbors.
The Antigua and Barbuda government is currently negotiating with the court-appointed administrator of LIAT (1974), Cleveland Seafort, regarding the purchase of the bankrupt airline’s assets as the main shareholder in LIAT (2020).
However, the Antigua and Barbuda Workers Union (ABWU) has expressed concerns about the future direction of the company and is working to secure severance payments for the airline’s employees.
While the Barbados and St. Lucia governments have made funds available to cover the three-year outstanding debt to workers in their countries, the same cannot be said for employees in the other islands.
Again!!!
It is about time common sense prevail.
It would be cheaper for the government of Antigua to give every Antiguan who wishes to travel within the region a free ticket on Caribbean Airlines, than to spend $30 million to prop up that money pit.
The present Antigua & Barbuda government is a colossal failure. This government cannot pay its workers, is mostly late on wages and salaries, owes most service providers, its national debt is astronomical, it has a monumental management problem.
Gaston and his sycophants trying to revive the fortunes of LIAT is equivalent to an undertaker trying to breathe life into the dead. IMPOSSIBLE!
The other leaders of the OECS, with the exception of Starboy of Stupidity, adamantly refuse to invest in LIAT. Would any sensible person be a passenger on a plane when they know that a farmer does the maintenance? In this scenario, Gaston is the farmer.