According to Dominica’s Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit, the owners of LIAT 1974 Ltd are no closer to resolving the difficulties travelers are currently experiencing as a result of the bankruptcy of LIAT.
“This is an ongoing debate. Dominica’s Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit told reporters at the conclusion of the 44th CARICOM summit in the Bahamas, “We have mandated the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) to explore and examine the current challenge that we face, and to provide recommendations on how we can overcome the intra-regional travel issue.”
LIAT has a history of financial difficulties, but the severity of the crisis became more apparent during the height of the Covid-19 outbreak in July 2020, when the airline was forced to cease operations.
Skerrit informed reporters that the issue had been discussed at the summit and that the leaders had received a report update from the CDB.
“We have also considered a number of activities that we believe we can do immediately to assist in resolving the present difficulty. “The reality is that we all miss LIAT in the Caribbean, an airline that was criticized by so many of us, but now we understand and appreciate the important public good that LIAT espoused for so many decades, and so we are examining what kind of structure we can bring into play, given that there are already companies servicing our islands,” he said.
Skerrit stated that the Caribbean nations are examining “how we can collaborate with these existing groups to address the current difficulties.”
The governments of Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines own the airline.
Since November 2020, a scaled-down version of the airline has operated a reduced schedule with a smaller personnel.