(Trinidad Express) Caribbean Airlines should finally be able to break even by the end of 2014, Minister of State in the Ministry of Finance Vasant Bharath said yesterday.
Speaking to reporters after the launch of the Caribbean Investment Forum at the Hyatt Regency (Trinidad) hotel, Port of Spain, Bharath said that was the impression he has received from CAL chairman Rabindra Moonan and vice-chair Mohan Jaikaran.
He said Jaikaran and acting chief executive Robert Corbie made a presentation to him and Finance Minister Larry Howai last week, outlining a restructuring proposal for the cash-strapped airline over the next 24 months.
He also addressed concerns by the Jamaican government on whatever impact these plans will have on that country.
“(They have) also explained in a little more detail on the Jamaican routes. Frequency has been reduced by about 50 per cent and that was of concern to the Jamaican government. I have since written to Jamaica’s transport minister, Dr Omar Davies, (and officials) are relatively happy now.
“What we have agreed is that I will lead a high-level team to Jamaica in June and will discuss the way forward with them,” he said.
He said the intention of a CAL/Air Jamaica merger was to have a pan-Caribbean airline.
“It has not worked as intended and, really, that’s because of the intervention of a number of low-cost carriers to the market place and usurped a lot of passenger traffic,” he said.
He added that regarding the bubbling dispute between CAL and the region’s other carrier LIAT over CAL’s Government-funded fuel subsidy, it would be premature for him to comment, until LIAT’s chairman and St Vincent Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves and Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar met to discuss the situation further.
“When CAL was initially set up (in 2007), there was an initial grace period of five or six years that the airline, during its restructuring, was going to be given a subsidised fuel price. So we are that stage now. We are now reviewing the airline,” Bharath said.
Bharath added that Trinidad and Tobago’s Government portal website TTBizlink.gov.tt won the prestigious United Nations Public Service Award for the Latin American and Caribbean region.
Bharath, whose ministry is responsible for TTBizlink, said the ministry had only received the information that morning.
