Thursday, March 02, 2006

 

Airline woes

Image hosting by PhotobucketThere was much drama on Wednesday as LIAT ground to a halt when all its pilots simultaneously came down with the same illness.The strike,"sick out" or whatever is the correct term was just another twist in the life of the embattled airline. The sickout is said to have stemmed from a LIAT proposed timeframe for disbursements which extended over too long a period plus outstanding payments due to pilots. Earlier this year we were greeted with the news that Barbados was now the biggest shareholder and that plans were afoot to restructure the airline to make it profitable.Now,as if to make a mockery of the situation a meeting in Barbados late Tuesday night which ended around midnight, apparently yielded the actions of the pilots.

As was to be expected there were scores of disgruntled passengers at the ET Joshua airport in St Vincent and most likely in the many airports around the region.Those persons who were booked to depart Trinidad following that island's carnival would have found themselves in quite a jam.Could you imagine if some persons had taken 2 sick days(aka unofficial leave)only to find themselves stuck in Trinidad indefinitely? They would have had some explaining to do to their supervisors.

Meantime, salary negotiations are set to commence soon and passengers can only hope that there won't be any more repeats of what transpired on Wednesday.As for me am so sick of lIAT and its general poor service that sometimes I wish they would just shut down for good.That would have saved the governments from continuously pumping money into a dying entity.Thankfully,for us in SVG who relied almost exclusively on LIAT there is now Caribbean Star complete with attractive fares to give us a little respite from LIAT woes.


Comments:
the airline situation is crazy right now, strikes, claims of bankrupcy, revoking employee pensions...just insane! but more importantly...r. kelly?
 
The airline industry is in turmoil these days. Air Jamaica has changed hands back to the government. Restructuring and destination changes. I can imagine how upset the passengers were...I get really upset when my filght is delayed even for an hour!
 
N.I'm an R kelly fan.Don't shoot me.lol
 
I think that if the Government wants to reduce the negative effects that this troubled arline passes on to the public, they need to insitute a remedy a la Air Jamaica and the Jamaican government. Instead of continuously donating funds to "give the crack baby a better life", they need to acquire full control of it. Is the Gov't of SVG able to do that? What about BWIA? Does BWIA operate in SVG? Can they provide an alternative to the passenger? Sorry for being a pragmatic pain in this comment, Abeni. Keep Cool. :-)
 
Nah,BWEE don't operate here and Govt of Bdos bought out the major shares.It's really Caribbean Star and Liat we have to rely on that cover most the inter island routes
 
Seems that Mish (Yamffot) was one of the victims... still, she made it to Grenada, so its all good.
 
not only airline stuff is crazy these days but travel scams got the best of a bunch of folks i know who were heading down to carnival.
 
Liat and Caribbean Star are poor excuses of an airline. They have always had woes for as long as I can remember. All the airlines seem to have issues. Maybe we should all start taking boats!
 
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