So much is happening all at once. At first, though, I am forced to comment on the issue of
LI. What unfair competition is there from
BW? Again and again
LI moan about
BW but really, how many routes do they actually face each other on?
POS -
BGI was always a strong route for old
BW.
BW flew it several times daily in the past as a leg on routes elsewhere (
LHR,
YYZ,
JFK,
MIA,
KIN) and
LI's presence was relatively miniscule for many years. Indeed, before the vogue of nonstop flights from hubs came, many other airlines like
BA, Pan Am and Eastern flew between the two islands and took local traffic.
LI only really started marketing
BGI as a destination from
POS in the 1990s when they added
TAB as a destination, as the flights went
POS -
TAB -
BGI and were thus one-stop as opposed to the multi-stops they had before via GND and SVD. In any case GND later joined the original routing of that service. In spite of all of that,
BW had so many daily nonstops between
POS and
BGI that they were largely the default choice of many. Subsequent to that the route saw Caribbean Star, Air Caribbean and
EC Xpress all try their hands and ultimately fail.
As is well-documented, when new
BW arose they did away with most of the regional multi-stop services (save for
KIN) and so
BGI saw less service from them and it was this which enabled
LI, which went on to start a
POS hub, to introduce
BGI nonstops.
BW has grown however and now runs several turboprop terminator flights alongside the
KIN services. In effect it is recapturing the market its predecessor held for many years. So for
LI to complain of "unfair competition", fuel subsidy notwithstanding, seems a bit at variance with the reality.
POS - GND has always had a fair amount of competition too over the years and old
BW had a strong service level around 1999-2000 with 3 daily flights on the route, feeding into the
POS hub.
POS -
SLU is nothing new regarding competition either as old
BW flew into
UVF (and
SLU on occasion with MD83s) and
BA do so every day at present (
POS will lose Sunday
BA services later this year). Above all, though, new
BW has largely left
POS -
ANU, an extremely strong route for its predecessor and now
LI have this and
BGI -
ANU all to themselves. That these high-volume routes, plus the services to islands like DOM which have few alternatives are not helping the airline to at least get a steady revenue stream and try to refocus themselves into a more viable entity suggests deep-seated problems.
LI seem to want T&T to step in, infuse it with cash and perhaps offer them a fuel subsidy but for many reasons I do not see this happening, especially as the
BW subsidy is becoming increasingly controversial.
That could be the pivotal question in all of this.
That's a bit of a shame but that route has been an
AA stronghold recently. Old
JM left the route around 2009 after noting heavy losses. It seems that the brethren who flew
JM are based more towards
FLL.
Trintocan.
. I fail to see the point of this persons post, I hope some one can make some sort of sense to it
