Wednesday, June 24th 2009 –THE only way to action the idea of a single airspace across the eastern Caribbean is for the merger of the two existing airlines, Caribbean Airlines and LIAT, and for the adoption of an open skies policy among the countries involved, the Task Force on enhanced regional unity has recommended.
It says further that if these and other related recommendations are accepted, this would lead to the following outcomes.
Not only would the countries involved have strengthened their air transportation sectors, but they would have taken a giant step towards strengthening their economies, given the inescapable relationship between air transportation and tourism, and the highly important role of tourism in these countries.
Governments of Trinidad and Tobago and the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States have been urged therefore to “merge Caribbean Airlines and LIAT into a single regional airline with a purely commercial operating mandate”. They have been advised also to establish “common institutions for air transport and civil aviation management”.
Four major advantages have been advanced as obvious results from this move alone. A single airspace would make for the harmonisation, regulation and management of air transportation, air navigation and other civil aviation services under a single set of rules, procedures and policies. The adoption of a liberalised policy towards air services, specifically an open skies policy, would follow. Also, a merged airline entity would operate under guidelines provided by the World Bank and the Caribbean Tourism Organisation. This in turn would mean reviewing the question of state ownership of airlines. Flowing naturally from this would be the ending of “blanket subsidisation of loss-making carriers and putting in place an appropriate policy to ensure continuity of services on non-profitable intra-regional routes”.
Such a merged operation under an open skies policy would also create an environment of merged civil aviation authorities among the countries involved, “for the proper regulation of civil aviation matters in the single airspace”.
Not only would the air transport sectors in these countries have been strengthened by these moves, the Task Force has argued, but the economies, those of the OECS countries in particular which are heavily tourism oriented, would have also been strengthened.
The Task Force referred to a statement on this matter issued at the end of a meeting of Caribbean tourism ministers in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in October 2007.
“Air transport solutions are crucial to tourism and general business development and a regional approach would be much more effective, far reaching and sustainable,” those ministers held.
From the World Bank report in 2006, the report found that regionally owned airlines were “generally facing serious operational and financial problems, with a consequent negative impact on the quality and reliability of regional services”.
Given that Prime Minister Patrick Manning has been speaking about the Task Force report, it suggests that the Trinidad and Tobago Cabinet has approved the document, submitted to group Heads of Government at a meeting in Port of Spain on May 24.
The Task Force was headed by St Lucian political scientist and former prime minister Prof Vaughn Lewis, and its membership included legal, international relations and economics experts from Grenada, Barbados and St Lucia.
Its proposals have been drawn up against a broad mandate to make recommendations for an economic union by 2011 and further political union by 2013. The countries involved are Trinidad and Tobago and those of the OECS.
Having been part of the revived initiative in 2003, the last government of Barbados appears to have opted out of the equation, but the current Prime Minister, David Thompson, is known to be anxious for speeded up regional initiatives on both air and maritime services in the region. Both are listed as priority items in the party’s manifesto for the 2008 general election, which brought Thompson’s Democratic Labour Party to power after 13 years in opposition.
Surveying the data on intra-regional travel, the Task force confirmed widely held information about the critical role of air transportation through the island chain. It found that statistical data showed “a substantial volume of air travel among member countries of the OECS and between them and Trinidad and Tobago”.
Regional tourism forms a considerable percentage of overall tourism. Intra-Caribbean movements account for 25 per cent of arrivals within the OECS themselves, and airlift and seats available from elsewhere in the Caribbean to the OECS accounts for 30 per cent of the total. For St Vincent and the Grenadines and Dominica, however, “intra-Caribbean travel forms 100 per cent of their air travel”, the Task Force report found.
“Air transportation can deliver greater gains to the economies of all the countries if it can be improved through restructuring,” the report said. It added, however, that “the best way for the countries to reform their air transportation sectors to achieve the expansion and development of their tourist industries is through regional integration”.
Using figures from 2004, the Task Force found that the majority of Caribbean arrivals into Trinidad and Tobago come from Barbados, while a similar volume of traffic was going the other way. St Lucia and St Vincent and the Grenadines got the second and third highest number of arrivals from Barbados, with those OECS countries also providing the second highest number of arrivals into Barbados.
Arrivals to these countries from Guyana was also significant, the report found, adding that “if these countries merge their economies and form a political union, they would have to adopt a common air transportation policy if they are to sustain and develop their regional tourism”.