LIAT told: Get it together

REGIONAL air carrier LIAT must get its act together.

According to Grenadian Prime Minister Dr. Keith Mitchell, the regional airline must become much more responsible and efficient, allowing for better and more timely intra-regional travel.

Dr. the Hon. Keith Mitchell, Prime Minister of Grenada, as he
spoke with members of the media in Barbados last Wednesday.

While speaking with the media about a range of regional issues after his arrival in Barbados last Wednesday, Dr. Mitchell noted that in the past he has been criticised in sections of the media for being “anti-LIAT”. However, he stressed that to date, what he wants is to see LIAT become more efficient and to serve the region’s people better.

“How could I be anti-LIAT? I am anti any business that does not want to get its act together, reduce wastage and provide increased efficiency in services. LIAT as we know historically has been in my view an inefficient operation, even when it had a monopoly service and the planes were always packed with people, because as a cricketer, I travelled around the region. Yet, when they have presented books, it loses money,” he remarked.

“That made no sense, but it wasn’t surprising if you check what has been happening with the staffing at LIAT. It was the most heavily staffed operation and you and I know why this was so. You just have to look at the headquarters of LIAT and what was happening with the staffing over the years. And clearly, that can’t continue. So I was an outspoken critic of this, while we invested and gave LIAT a lot of concessions in order to maintain it. And I said, if I am going to take the taxpayers’ limited resources to invest, I expect LIAT to behave itself. That’s what I said and I was criticised for this,” the PM explained.

Mitchell, who noted that he is standing his ground on this matter, suggested that he will be speaking with LIAT Chairman Jean Holder about how Grenada can help LIAT to become more responsible in the context mention and at the same time, provide increased services.

“As it stands, I cannot tell you I feel very happy about what is happening there,” he stressed, adding that there is not sufficient movement of people across the region.

He also noted that he too has suffered from the lengthy travel arrangements currently set up to get from one Caribbean country to another, having had to cancel a trip to conduct urgent business in Trinidad just before General Elections in his home country in February of this year, because he would have had to travel to Barbados first, then on to St. Vincent and then end in Tobago.

“Now if that happens to me and I had urgent business and I refused to go, how are we going to expect the citizens of the country to decide that they want to go on a four-day vacation in Grenada or Dominica? Are you going to go? No way,” he stated.

“We are talking CSME, we are talking free movement of people, but we have no transport. We’d better get serious competition,” he added, while suggesting that REDjet’s absence is a huge loss to the region.

“I will not invest in an operation that wants to continue to be inefficient and not responsible. Caribbean Airlines is there. I will not fail in my responsibility to look at this,” Mitchell concluded. (RSM)