Wednesday, July 24, 2013

CDB provides USD 65 million for LIAT Fleet Modernisation

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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

LIAT must do three things to ever get itself operating in the red. Incorporate the best practice of low-cost carriers abroad. Next, very rapidly get rid of its expensive aging flying assets. Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, extensively revamp its operating cost structure vis-à-vis its existing and too generous benefits package, which really mirrors its operations in the last century.

Repeatedly, LIAT's current shareholders have shown a lack of the political will or industry knowledge to undertake the change imperatives.

If all of the changes will not be done, all at once and now, then the beleaguered Saint Lucian economy, already wilting under poor revenue receipts and a staggering unsustainable debt burden, aggravated by the Petro Caribe involvement, should not join other governments who seem to be in the business of throwing good money after bad.

Only a small group of already well-heeled businesspeople and heavily-perked regional politicians have to do the frequent-flying thing. They can afford to help LIAT with its continuing operations cost madness.

There will be cost savings and other advantages for ordinary and businesspeople in Saint Lucia staying here at home but using computer-mediated communication for virtual teams and for teamwork.

Instead of pouring money into a financial black-hole, the Saint Lucia government would do well to take a page from the ASEAN countries and give tax discounts for business travel evidenced by actual benchmarking exercises and genuine business promotion activities.

Saint Lucia's government today is still stupidly thinking and operating in the past, as if it were primarily geared to servicing the sunset industry of banana-fruit production as the main cylinder of this economy.

Moreover, most of our relatives sending their remittances going to our GNP and through the "barrels", reside in North America and England.

July 25, 2013 at 9:26 AM
Anonymous said...

Did you mean in the black?

July 27, 2013 at 7:50 AM
Anonymous said...

Yes. That should have been written, "out of the red into the black."

Look at it this way. LIAT's exorbitant fare structure acts a tax (a "cost inflation" tax) which serves to restrict the demand for regional air travel (and not inter-island travel per se) within the region. This, in effect, translates into cost savings for governments whose economies are especially undergoing severe economic strain. Therefore, this suggests that for "value for money" driven passengers, only necessary travel will be undertaken in the short- to medium-term.

July 27, 2013 at 3:33 PM

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