LIAT Airline Blames Its Financial Woes on Lack of Cooperation in the Caribbean

The lack of cooperation within the airline industry in the Caribbean is contributing to the poor financial status of this sector in the region, regretted Garry Cullen, Chief Executive Officer of the Antigua-based Leeward Islands Air Transport (LIAT).

Mr. Cullen expressed that the overall state of the regions air carriers must be a matter of serious concern to Caribbean governments as well as the aviation and tourism industry leaders. LIAT has been forced to launch a new strategic plan in an effort to cope with its financial woes.

The lack of any meaningful level of cooperation between the major players has contributed greatly to this situation. There is clear evidence of this here in Antigua when you consider the accumulated losses of both LIAT and Caribbean Star, Mr. Cullen said.

In the case of LIAT, apart from being effected by general industry issues, the company is faced with two major areas of difficulty: lack of adequate working capital and its operations being confined to a limited market that has a significant mismatch between capacity supply and passenger demand for over two-thirds of the year, its top leader indicated.

Government shareholders have come to the rescue and the company now has a government shareholding of 73.4 per cent. A recapitalisation process has begun following the receipt of US$16.2 million earlier this month.