danipawa wrote:Liat has only 10 days' cash to keep functioning
http://www.cnc3.co.tt/press-release/lia ... vYOA_APtto
Let it fail. We’re all connecting through MIA at this point anyway. Even the routes they fly are too expensive or too inconvenient
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danipawa wrote:Liat has only 10 days' cash to keep functioning
http://www.cnc3.co.tt/press-release/lia ... vYOA_APtto
Balloonchaser wrote:Has anyone heard anything about SXM? Nothing new in a while..
danipawa wrote:First F70 for Curacao Starup JetAir Caribbean arrived at CUR yesterday:
Balloonchaser wrote:Has anyone heard anything about SXM? Nothing new in a while.. With hotels open the economy starting to boom, and the airport making strides of progress, I would expect airlines to jump on it and introduce new service to the island.
Balloonchaser wrote:Has anyone heard anything about SXM? Nothing new in a while..
baje427 wrote:danipawa wrote:First F70 for Curacao Starup JetAir Caribbean arrived at CUR yesterday:
I know the acquisition costs on the Fokker70/100 must be cheap but what about maintenance? I have to imagine an ATR could do 90% of the routes they will operate.
gunnerman wrote:The flights are actually KIN-BGI-KIN. I suspect that BW has an underutilised 738 and crew.
gunnerman wrote:The flights are actually KIN-BGI-KIN. I suspect that BW has an underutilised 738 and crew.
gunnerman wrote:Haven't the four shareholder governments pledged to bail out LIAT?
LimaFoxTango wrote:A little news about LI, and to make a very long story very short, the unions representing various staff have been given a deadline of end of business today March 28 to respond to LI's proposal of almost 10% salary cut, or face closure of the airline.
We wait.
Brickell305 wrote:
I think it's very sad that it's come to this. They are essentially holding the staff for ransom.
caribny wrote:Brickell305 wrote:
I think it's very sad that it's come to this. They are essentially holding the staff for ransom.
This is a bluff. The owners of LIAT aren't going to shut it down and leave no service. If they restart an airline there will be severance payments for the old employees as many will have to be rehired into the new entity. And the new entity will have to be recapitalized.
LIAT has to identify which routes aren't profitable and either cut them or demand MRGs from the destinations benefitting. They think that they are a utility entitled to ongoing subsidies, but gov'ts cannot afford this. LI lacks credibility in its management efficiency and they will have to deal with this issue if they want more $$. Is management talking a 10% pay cut as well?
https://searchlight.vc/searchlight/pres ... avourable/
Response from governments and workers to LIAT’s proposals not favourable
2019/03/27
The governments which were asked to make Minimum Revenue Guarantees (MRGs) or emergency cash input to LIAT have not responded favourably, except for Grenada.
The regional airline has also hit another hurdle as workers have not agreed to pay cuts suggested in an attempt to restructure the struggling airline.
March 15 was the deadline given to 11 regional territories to respond to a request from LIAT for MRGs and earlier this month, the regional airline also asked eight countries to contribute to a total of US$5.4 million to an emergency fund, with the aim of keeping its planes in the sky.
But speaking on Friday, Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves, who is the chairman of the shareholder governments of LIAT said that the response to the requests has not been favourable.
Gonsalves said that other than the shareholder governments, only Grenada has said they will come aboard to provide emergency funding and no other country. He said that while everybody is saying they agree theoretically, there is no movement.
It was also announced this week that management and unions representing the airline’s workers have served notice that a salary cut is not an option although the unions seemed willing to accept pay cuts during an initial meeting.
“I don’t think the workers fully appreciate what is going to happen,” Gonsalves stated.
He said that the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) is involved and there are three options: for the private sector to take over LIAT, close down LIAT and start a new business or restructure.
“…[Restructure] is a pie in the sky. Private sector, they may come with the government involved but for them to take it over, they have been that road before and they back away like soldier crab.
“With the restructuring, everybody had to bear some burden including the workers and not an undue burden, but if they think you can continue as usual…”, Gonsalves said in an interview on We FM last week.
Giving some numbers, Gonsalves noted that at the moment, LIAT has 10 planes; SVG has 52 flights per week, Barbados 116 flights and Antigua 69 flights. St Lucia has flights with an average load factor of 46 per cent while Trinidad has a 38 per cent load factor.
He said that these load factors mean that without MRGs, the St Lucia and Trinidad routes might be dropped because if the shareholder governments have to pay for those routes it might be better to engage other aircraft to fly them.
It was added also that with fewer routes, three of the 10 planes that LIAT owns can be sold and that will reduce the debt on shareholder governments like Barbados and Antigua.
“People don’t understand the modern period of regional aviation. I am not fed up with LIAT. I am sticking there with LIAT, but it has to be a substantially restructured LIAT and we have restructured in the past and there is no problem in principal if you have to do a small subsidy in LIAT, but clearly, we alone can’t be bearing the burden,” said Gonsalves.
The major shareholders of LIAT are Barbados, SVG, Antigua and Barbuda and Dominica and there are plans to encourage St Kitts Nevis, Grenada, St Lucia and Guyana to become shareholders.
The Prime Minister said the LIAT issue is taking up a lot of his time, but he has to press on.
“Some of the people cursing LIAT have no solution,” he said.
On Tuesday, president of the Leeward Islands Airline Pilots Association (LIAPA), Carl Burke told the media that his members are very reluctant to accept a salary cut while Prime Minister of St Lucia Allen Chastanet said he has not entirely dismissed the MRGs suggestion for non-profitable routes, but much more detail about that suggestion has to be provided before he makes a final decision.
danipawa wrote:Sky High Aviation launching St Thomas from Santo Domingo starting April 12 and San Juan starting April 11
303dk wrote:danipawa wrote:Sky High Aviation launching St Thomas from Santo Domingo starting April 12 and San Juan starting April 11
STT to the DR is a (relatively) huge VFR market, but it’s hard to compete B6 via SJU. They have the capacity to undercut a small carrier
TRAVEL ADVISORY
SCHEDULE CHANGES FRIDAY 29TH MARCH,2019
LIAT wishes to advise that due to unscheduled maintenance on two of its aircraft, several flights have been cancelled and/or retimed for Friday 29th March 2019. These changes will affect the following flights:
· LI 374 from Barbados to St. Lucia
· LI 375 from St. Lucia to Barbados
· LI 337 from Barbados to Grenada
· LI 338 from Grenada to Barbados
· LI 335 from Barbados to Trinidad
· LI 336 from Trinidad to Barbados
· LI 769 from Barbados to St. Vincent
· LI 770 from St. Vincent to Barbados.
LI 364 has been retimed for a later departure.
LI 364 from Barbados to Dominica will now depart at 3:00 p.m.
LI364 from Dominica to Antigua will depart at 4:25 p.m.
Affected passengers will be moved to other flights at no charge. Please contact our Reservations Call Centre or your travel agent for more information.
beeweel15 wrote:Got this from a friend.
BW600 wrote:BW has updated its website. Looks very modern.
Perhaps BW’s new KIN-BGI-KIN flights are the first additions in the attempt to re focus on KIN
Brickell305 wrote:BW600 wrote:BW has updated its website. Looks very modern.
Perhaps BW’s new KIN-BGI-KIN flights are the first additions in the attempt to re focus on KIN
With all the cuts out of KIN recently, they are probably just looking to improve aircraft utilization. A BGI nonstop twice a week probably makes more sense than any other option.
caribny wrote:I was of the impression that POS was one of LI's bigger markets, and that SLU was also a profitable one. This is my point about LIAT. Their decisions are made purely on intimidating countries to pay up. Not on whether routes make sense or not. Regardless as to whether the FDF. PTP, or SJU routes are profitable or not they will not make these threats as they know that there will be no MRG from those entities. And they probably will not to EIS or SXM either.
Does LI have the attitude that they will do best with 3 planes flying between SVD, BGI, DOM and ANU because this seems to be where they are headed? GND has asked for detailed info on route profitability into that island and their MRG will be contingent on that.
LI needs to furnish the same data that the major carriers do if a route needs revenue support. Closing down SLU and POS just facilitates further incursions by BW and maybe 3S into LI territory. At some point LI will lose economies of scale if they continue to retrench.
In addition even routes that they maintain will be compromised by reduced feed from markets that they exit. SLU BGI isn't just people traveling between these two islands but also people intransit thru the BGI hub to other points. There is a good amount of travel between SLU and GEO as an example, as well as some to GND/SKB. All lost if SLU is scratched. Does LI even track the ultimate destination of their passengers, or just point to point travel?
Brickell305 wrote:beeweel15 wrote:Got this from a friend.
Just added confirmation that this is in fact real.
http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/lead ... -all-staff
Fly Jamaica lays off all staff
Saturday | March 30, 2019
Employees of Fly Jamaica Airways have been made redundant, effective March 31, 2019.
In a letter to members of staff yesterday, the airline’s chairman and CEO Paul Ronald Reece said that the company “regrets to inform you (staff) that due to our lack of aircraft and the impact that it had on the company’s financial position, we have no alternative but to make all our employees redundant ... ”.
On November 9, 2018, Fly Jamaica’s Boeing 757-200 aircraft overshot the runway at Guyana’s main international airport, injuring several people.
It was reported that the plane, which was on its way to Toronto, reported a hydraulic failure emergency shortly after taking off from the Cheddi Jagan International Airport and returned after less than 20 minutes.
Reece, in his letter to staff, said: “It is with regret, sadness, and remorse that we have arrived at this juncture. We were hoping for funding, but that has been slow in coming, therefore, for the time being, no other resources or options exist.”
Fly Jamaica’s CEO said that the company, which has been in operation for six years, was committed to paying workers sums owed from November 2018. However, it is asking for more time to settle its obligations.
“If the company’s circumstances change in the future and you are still interested in employment with the company, you will be invited to apply for a position within the company,” Reece said.
caribny wrote:What might help LI with POS is a BW/LI code share allowing BW to operate GND POS and for LI to operate the SVD POS routes. This reduces duplication and probably improves load factors. As of now LI has at least 1 plane more than it needs because it drastically scaled back its northern tier routes.
I also wish that Mia Motley took over as the head shareholder. She has a stronger business head than Ralph and more at stake as BGI is the largest shareholder and really can no longer be LI's main ATM. She has a motive to drive LI into some break even situation based on revised operations instead of bullying gov'ts to pump $$ into LI every time they have a problem (which seems to be every year).
Of course high travel taxes remains LI's big challenge as it has resulted in a drastic reduction of intra regional travel. Long gone is the impulse travel to a neighboring island. Even at peak times like Xmas LI isn't necessarily full, which is a far cry from the days when they were over booked during such periods.
caribny wrote:What might help LI with POS is a BW/LI code share allowing BW to operate GND POS and for LI to operate the SVD POS routes. This reduces duplication and probably improves load factors. As of now LI has at least 1 plane more than it needs because it drastically scaled back its northern tier routes.
I also wish that Mia Motley took over as the head shareholder. She has a stronger business head than Ralph and more at stake as BGI is the largest shareholder and really can no longer be LI's main ATM. She has a motive to drive LI into some break even situation based on revised operations instead of bullying gov'ts to pump $$ into LI every time they have a problem (which seems to be every year).
Of course high travel taxes remains LI's big challenge as it has resulted in a drastic reduction of intra regional travel. Long gone is the impulse travel to a neighboring island. Even at peak times like Xmas LI isn't necessarily full, which is a far cry from the days when they were over booked during such periods.
Brickell305 wrote:caribny wrote:What might help LI with POS is a BW/LI code share allowing BW to operate GND POS and for LI to operate the SVD POS routes. This reduces duplication and probably improves load factors. As of now LI has at least 1 plane more than it needs because it drastically scaled back its northern tier routes.
I also wish that Mia Motley took over as the head shareholder. She has a stronger business head than Ralph and more at stake as BGI is the largest shareholder and really can no longer be LI's main ATM. She has a motive to drive LI into some break even situation based on revised operations instead of bullying gov'ts to pump $$ into LI every time they have a problem (which seems to be every year).
Of course high travel taxes remains LI's big challenge as it has resulted in a drastic reduction of intra regional travel. Long gone is the impulse travel to a neighboring island. Even at peak times like Xmas LI isn't necessarily full, which is a far cry from the days when they were over booked during such periods.
The problem with letting each airline serve a POS route exclusively is that it would occasion a fundamental change in the way each airline operates their route structure. For example, BW letting LI have POS-SVD exclusively would mean that in order to operate JFK-SVD as they've been doing, they'd either have to fly no revenue pax between POS and SVD or cycle the plane/crew POS-JFK-SVD-JFK-POS (which would also eliminate their ability to "top off" the flight with POS bound pax out of JFK when necessary). Either proposition would cost BW and make JFK-SVD more difficult to service.
In the case of LIAT, many of their routes are milk runs so for example an ANU-DOM-BGI-GND-POS routing would not only have GND originating pax bound to POS on the GND-POS leg but also ANU, DOM and BGI originating pax. Letting BW take over GND-POS entirely would either mean simply not flying any revenue pax between GND and POS which would make the flight costlier to run, having the flight terminate in GND and having POS bound pax transfer to a BW flight from there which I suspect would be a non-starter for many (although we may eventually end up in a scenario where they have no choice) or having an alternative routing where the last destination before POS is different (e.g. SVD, SLU or BGI) but that might make increase the cost of serving GND as a standalone destination.
I think it's time for hard decisions to be made. If loads into POS are really as low as 38% (which I find very hard to believe), then clearly LI cannot compete with BW and provides very little value to POS if they're not bringing in many pax. The largest E. Caribbean markets out of POS are already served by BW (albeit with some at sub-optimal frequencies). The only unique value that LI adds out of POS are smaller, niche markets that BW doesn't serve such as EIS, FDF, PTP, STT, SJU, etc. These could all be serviced via codeshare where BW flies the pax to BGI or ANU and LI takes them from there. LI has indicated that it is selling planes as they no longer have need for their entire fleet. Why not sell to BW and have them service all the E. Caribbean routes they determine to be worth it out of POS. The E. Caribbean would maintain its connection to POS via BW. Destinations that would remain unserved by BW could be connected to POS with transfers in ANU/BGI. It would simplify LI's network and let the airline with larger pockets assume a greater role in regional connectivity.
gunnerman wrote:If there were to be true cooperation you'd have to consider radical options such as BW being all-jet to serve the longer routes and LI taking over domestic routes including POS-TAB with aircraft based at POS. (Yes I know that POS-TAB is cabotage but the T&T government could allow it and pay LI to run what is a social service.) This would simplify BW's operation and enable LI to make better use of its bigger fleet.
gunnerman wrote:If there were to be true cooperation you'd have to consider radical options such as BW being all-jet to serve the longer routes and LI taking over domestic routes including POS-TAB with aircraft based at POS. (Yes I know that POS-TAB is cabotage but the T&T government could allow it and pay LI to run what is a social service.) This would simplify BW's operation and enable LI to make better use of its bigger fleet.
trintocan wrote:T.
In the case of LIAT, many of their routes are milk runs so for example an ANU-DOM-BGI-GND-POS routing would not only have GND originating pax bound to POS on the GND-POS leg but also ANU, DOM and BGI originating pax.
LI after all have been focused on connecting various islands to international flights out of BGI and ANU and these are their major shareholders.
Trintocan.