Kingston St. Vincent recently hosted the Ninth meeting of the committee of Ministers responsible for Civil Aviation in the OECS. Attending onAnguilla’s behalf were Hon. Evan Gumbs Minister of Infrastructure, housing, aviation and Parliamentary Secretary, Hon. Haydn Hughes who represented tourism. Also attending the meeting was the Secretary General of the Caribbean Tourism Organisation, Mr. Hugh Riley.
Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonzales took time out to Chair the meeting. Minister of Foreign affairs ofSt. Vincentand his Permanent Secretary also attended the meeting.
He welcomed all toSt. Vincent and the Grenadinesand reminded the Tourism delegates that they are now rated number 2, 5 and 7 as countries to visit by Travel and Leisure, CNN and NBC today show.
The tone for the meeting which is geared towards tourism and aviation was set by Prime Minister Gonzales. “We have come up with several papers on travel but none of the meetings have included the airlines. We can speak to cooperation between the islands but anything related to the airlines is still a corporate decision and we cannot tell corporations what to do.”
The Prime Minister went on to say that LIAT is known to be in some trouble and this is due to subsidies to other airlines. “The Caricom air services agreement makes the point that we must have fair competition and fair competition cannot involve subsidizes to an airline coming into a destination for the same route.“
Open air space, the APD and inter regional travel were also major discussion points. Anguilla’s Parliamentary Secretary, Hon. Haydn Hughes made the point that Caribbean Tourism was important forAnguilla. He went on to state that while the APD was bad for the region, all the Governments need to look at themselves in the mirror and address the taxes that they impose for LIAT and other airlines serving the region. He went on to state that if the region was serious about inter regional travel, then we must all reduce the cost of travel by looking at the landing fees and taxes.
The point was made that the region must work in the region of an air transport policy where member States should adopt a single economic space and include air transport as a part of the same.
Anguilla’s Minister of Infrastructure, Hon. Evan Gumbs made the point that he is not inclined to support open space given the fact that it would be the death to the small local airlines who have been servicing the area for many years. Prime Minister Gonzales strengthened Minister Gumbs points when he remarked that ‘the small airlines are our lifeblood!’ This point was supported by other Ministers whose islands also have indigenous airline companies.
In 2010 LIAT lost EC$20 million and in 2011 losses totaled EC$46 million.
– Press Release
(Published without editing by The Anguillian newspaper.)
