Liat adds cargo flight

Regional airline, LIAT, saying it would boost trade between islands, on Monday announced an all cargo scheduled freighter service to begin October 5.

LIAT's Director of Ground Operations, Cargo and Quikpak, Wilbur Edwards, said he had already met with the ministers of trade and agriculture and was satisfied with the outcome of the deliberations.

"We recognise that LIAT is the most suitable carrier to implement an intra-Caribbean freighter operation," he said at a news conference.

"The governments of the Caribbean are aggressively promoting improved trade between the islands of the subregion. In order for this to be achieved there will be need for increased opportunities of cargo uplift so that exporters could improve their markets both regionally and internationally," he told reporters.

Edwards said LIAT did its own study on the feasibility of an intra Caribbean freighter operation back in 2003, deciding from then to convert one of its Dash-8 100 series aircraft into an all-cargo plane.

But: "At that time, LIAT was in serious financial difficulty so we had to shelve the plan," he said, explaining the seven-year delay in implementation.

"We were in survival mode at the time and were severely challenged even to purchase the cargo conversion kit which cost about US$80,000 at the time. We knew we would revisit the plan at the appropriate times as the initial studies revealed a promising outlook."

Analyses were done again in 2008 and 2009 on the economic viability of the service.

"Both analyses pointed to the existence of significant demand for additional reliable cargo service within the Eastern Caribbean," Edwards said.

"Interest in the initiative came from a variety of sources including manufacturers, agricultural and seafood producers, tourism and consumer markets."

A central element of the plan is to partner with larger carriers operating at three major hubs - Barbados, Antigua and Trinidad - to provide freight into and out of LIAT's network.

"Important opportunities exist with these carriers to feed into extra-regional markets," Edwards said.

Having cleared all the hurdles, "there is nothing to stand in our way and we intend to build reliability and integrity into our schedule in a very short time," he added.

The all-cargo flights will operate five days per week, with weekends off for routine maintenance or one-off charters and other unscheduled business.

"However, we plan to start off cautiously with a three-day-a-week operation until the demand dictates an increase," Edwards said.

- CMC