Tuesday, July 25, 2017

Consultant Concerned About Foreign Airline Models




St Kitts and Nevis (WINN): Foreign models of airlines do not work in the Caribbean, according to aviation consultant James Lynch.

He has been referring to the fact that airlines like Caribbean Star and RedJet which operated in the region failed to make a lasting impression.

“Caribbean Star was an American model of airline that was brought to the Caribbean and foreign models of airlines do not work in the Caribbean. RedJet was an Irish model that they brought to the Caribbean, Caribbean Air Express was a British model they brought to the Caribbean, Dutch Caribbean Express was an American model they brought to the Caribbean. They get investment, they come down they think it’s all sun and sand and sea and they bring down their own developed country business plan, they bring the developed country budget and they quickly run into trouble because the developed country business plans do not work in the Caribbean and the amount of money they need back in the United States, or back in Ireland or back in England, that is a drop in the bucket compared to what they need to start an airline in the Caribbean.”

Canada-based Lynch, a former LIAT pilot, made reference to the financial problems RedJet had to deal with.

He says too that foreign investors in the airline business in the Caribbean have policies which often discriminate.

“As you saw RedJet went back to the Barbados government looking for more money and the Barbados government turned them down. You come to the Caribbean with their business plan and they want to hire only expatriates, they want to hire their own people, they want to bring in their own pilots and you come to the Caribbean you can’t do that. If I was an investor from the Caribbean and I want to start an airline in the United States it’s not gonna happen from square one because they don’t allow majority shareholding from not  being a US citizen. Even if I could past that obstacle, I cannot then bring Jamaicans and Bajans and Antiguans and Kittitians and St Lucians to the United States to run the airlines, are you crazy?”

James Lynch’s comments came as he made a case for a drastic change in the manner in which cash-strapped regional airline LIAT is operated.

He makes reference to an alleged pattern of incompetence in political appointment, management abuse and wanton waste of company funds.

In an interview with WINN FM, former pilot Lynch sought to justify those claims.

Listen to audio:  https://www.winnfm.com

No comments:

Post a Comment