fowlr29 wrote:caribny wrote:fowlr29 wrote:
I don't think JY has the spare capacity be it crew, or aircraft, or otherwise to do this.
They're stretched right now as it is.
As we all know the entire region is disconnected, St Lucia and the USVI is only one example of this. It's sad, but the region will stay this way until the politics for a state/region funded carrier allows, be it LIAT 2020 or otherwise. A private company is not going to be able to get the region connected in the way it was with LIAT 1974. The market conditions we have right now are as a result of the private sector, with JY on low capacity, and 3S stopping the Eastern Caribbean routes (besides FDF-BGI). The private sector solution will be high fares, low frequency and not enough connectivity. The market prefers to fly P2P where there is high demand from one island to the next, which is what is happening now, the rest of the lower demand markets will remain disconnected as the private airlines will not be interested in stopping on multiple islands trying to make up the numbers; it's just too expensive. There's rumors of WM venturing into the EC when their ATR fleet is supposed to be up and running but that will only help to connect SXM to the rest of the region, not connect the region itself.
The real issue with JY is they are a small privately owned so cannot fill the LI gap in a big way. JY doesnt do just P2P service. They run GEO BGI ANU, BGI SVD GND, and BGI SLU DOM. If you look at their route map they have "planned" a EIS SKB BGI. Now if that was fed by STT service that route would be even stronger. But they lack the resources to do so as they over expanded, got hurt by the pandemic and then by the loss of their SDQ hub. Even their BGI hub is underserved, but they cannot increase service because they were hurt by over expansion, and so their fleet is below what they had projected it to be.
WM is also running SXM SKB ANU so are also partially filling a LI void. I do not see how they can keep their ATR filled with just P2P, especially if they dropped SDQ. Given conditions in Haiti I do not see PAP being a replacement. AF isnt even serving PAP out of PTP FDF CAY at the present. If WM is going to serve the deep Eastern Caribbean there will have to be stops along the way.
The old LIAT isnt coming back, but clearly a void remains that will have to be filled. Someone living in STX/STT having a sick mother in SLU/SKB/DOM. Someone in EIS with a sick mother in SVD. Someone in SXM with a sick mother in GND. These are the challenges of intra regional travel. And you do not need the multiple flights per day that LI offered. It will take BW, WM, JY and LI to sit down in a room and craft a plan which will have to include code shares and coordinated scheduling. At this point people travelling from SKB accept the fact that it will be easier to fly to LGW than to POS/GEO so it doesnt take that much to fill the gap. We are now down to essential travel at this point. Charters for cricket, carnival (in the smaller islands), and music festivals.
The solution lies with the airlines. Leave MIa and Ralph Gonsalves out of this. I will gave Gaston credit. The much scaled down LI is a huge help. Now imagine if he listened to the naysayers and let LI collapse!
There's enough P2P between BGI ANU, SVD GND, and SLU DOM to justify those routes for JY. P2P is why they run those flights. Not to make up the passenger numbers on the BGI GEO, SVD BGI, GND BGI or SLU/DOM BGI routes.
WM added SKB-ANU to pick up local traffic for the off season between SKB and ANU, this stops Oct 30t when the typical tourist traffic starts to pick back up. WM does currently fly to PAP 1x a week. A very large Haitian community in SXM keeps this operating year round, as well as interline agreements with AF to get to Paris. Unlike AF that only runs PTP PAP seasonally. (Mind you WM sells PTP-PAP year round right now as well.) They could easily fill up their ATR simply with P2P traffic from SXM to DOM, SKB, SLU and EIS in the EC, both because of the local traffic and the 11 interline agreements that they have. Together with CUR AUA BON and PAP this will keep them plenty busy.
The days of an airline operating to another island just to create connections are gone. For example, EIS - BGI with the majority ending in BGI, and then adding BGI-SVD for a handful of connections to SVD. If it was profitable enough between EIS and SVD then there would be a flight between EIS and SVD, it's not, so there isn't. It's not profitable, so a private company will not do it, and hence the lack of connectivity in the region will remain. The government/regional governments have to fill the gap, be it with a minimum revenue guarantee, or some other financial incentive.
I agree that intra regional travel will not be addressed. Not because there is not demand for it, because loud voices say otherwise. But because Caribbean politicians disrespect Caribbean people, maybe because they cannot pay bribes as foreign investors can. So they will ignore this segment and people will suffer. Regional travelers and those stakeholders who serviced these people like the small hoteliers/restaurants and others. You see when a big jet arrives from the UK its often the bigger operators who get the business. A Bajan taxi driver once told me that he got more business from people arriving on LI from SVD and SLU and GEO. But who cares about those people. They suffer when regional travel dries up because the frequencies are too low, the flight routings and times too inconvenient or seats are always fully booked.
Several points.
1. WM can do low frequency P2P routes to the southern Caribbean from SXM, or they can have higher frequencies, generating more travel. Much travel within the Eastern Caribbean consists of people traveling from one island to another for a few days and when flights operate only 2w it means that people cannot travel. LI could have run high frequency P2P routes based on its BGI hub because that hub offered feed. WM isnt going to have that.
2. Without that BGI hub LI wouldnt have been able to operate that EIS BGI flight. Given that Vincies and Guyanese are among the bigger Caribbean migrant groups in the EIS its easy connectivity through BGI that enabled that flight to operate with high frequency (I think it was 4w).
3. Haiti has collapsed into a failed state with kidnappings and with expat Haitians being among the targeted. if AF, which connects the large Haitian communities of PTP and CAY, has ended that service I cannot imagine that Haitians in SXM are that eager to return home. I very much doubt that PAP is going to absorb fully WMs ATR service. They will need other routes to ensure proper utilization.
4. The main challenge is that none of the regional carriers are in a strong position. They will not be an airline with the dominance that LIAT once had. It will take imaginative thinking from the stakeholders to coordinate the services of these carriers. WM is going to find what LI found out, and that is an ATR is a large plane to do P2P unless run through a hub. This is why they set up their BGI hub. I do not see how WM can establish a hub to service intra regional travel, given that SXM lies far north and WM is barred from service to the USVI. Its hub will continue to offer access especially to SBH for travelers out of North America and Europe.
Another scheme, and tax payers should be very concerned about this. I really don't get politicians and these pork barrel spending ideas.