With regional air travel becoming more difficult, St Vincent and the Grenadines are not immune. Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves on Wednesday spoke extensively about LIAT 1974 Ltd’s closure, outstanding payments to workers, and the possibility of LIAT’s revival.
The death of LIAT 1974 ltd.
“I am smiling about this; for 19 years, from 2001 to 2020, I struggled with LIAT, I came in, and I took the chairmanship of LIAT; St Vincent at one time was the largest shareholder in Liat, for a period we put a lot of money in it.
When we were doing the refleeting, the proportion of our shares fell because of the amount of money we had to borrow. I said to Barbados and Antigua, well, it’s a time of equity among equals, proportionality among equals. And since we are not equal in this business, I have to take less of the burden because you have far more flights. You have hubs in Barbados and Antigua. You have more workers employed there, so you have to take a significant share of the burden.
But still, I was there soldiering on as chairman nobody wanted the chairmanship; I had to carry on. And I get beat up so much, even as late as April 2020. I had money in the budget, the supplementary budget, 1 million US $2.7 million EC. The opposition squealed, and journalists said way Ralph putting cash like that for in LIAT is a dead horse; leave it, let it die in peace.
Of course, none affected me, but one of the significant partners had gotten fed up. They could not continue, and then some of the pilots, some of the engineers, and some of the flight attendants behaved so unreasonably.
They were not in the majority, but they were driving their colleagues. The responsible colleagues were not taking front and saying, man, listen; this is a situation where we have to be reasonable. But all of them were unreasonable when they allowed themselves to be driven by this reckless minority.
I finally saw that this thing has to go, and we’d probably have to build it back. And I had always said that, and the experience and the studies have shown that regional air transportation and LIAT are, at best, a marginal financial proposition. Still, it’s of tremendous social and economic importance and salience, and it’s a public good, and all the governments should be involved.
Trinidad, say, no, they don’t have anything to do with that, Guyana said not them, St Kitts, St Lucia said not, and some of them campaigned actively against it, and I managed to get Dominica, and towards the end, Grenada put in I think $1,000,000. But they were not entirely on board.
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines had close to 40 flights a week, and I outlined that to people and the number of people we were moving. I said, listen, there is a case for us to continue doing this thing, but I was being beaten up. As I say, when some pilots, engineers, and flight attendants pull a wildcat strike or delay the aircraft somewhere at the base for 3 or 4 hours, they lose you $750,000 – 1 million that day. You do that two or three times a month; you see the problem. That kind of near banditry created a problem.
Now some of the same pilots, engineers and flight attendants who can’t get any work are begging for it to come back. And of course, we see people, Skinny Fabulous, for instance, wrote a letter of apology and other people.
When everybody was saying, oh, let the private sector do it. Well, I said, but it had been shown before that those who tried to do it went the way of all flesh.
Carib Express, EC Express, this other kind of small airline, that other one. I said you need in area one, and a half LIAT; all the other little ones can make up the other half, but it’s difficult for them to carry the whole burden, and you needed a LIAT type entity which is supported by all the government’s but that never happened”.
Legally there is nothing for workers.
“When some of the workers were behaving unreasonably, I said, look, LIAT is essentially insolvent, you’re not going to be able to get any money from the company, and the governments are not legally liable; they are shareholders, but this is a limited liability company.
I haven’t received final reports on what is happening concerning the administration under the laws of Antigua and Barbuda.
And, of course, it’s painful for workers to have to work many, many years, and then the airline collapses, but they don’t have anything to get legally.
I guess we have to find some way to see how we can address some of this, but it’s a lesson also for workers and management in a company that you have to behave responsibly for the enterprise to survive”.
A possible resurrection of LIAT
“I don’t think it could be back as LIAT 1974 limited, though it could be back as 2022 or 2023 Ltd or something similar.
However, that will require a commitment from more governments.
And, we may have to have a partner; maybe if we can get a partner somewhere in Latin America or Central America along with us, we will see”.
