- Greater Air Connectivity in the Eastern Caribbean, Can we return to the glory days?
The race is off to restore the high level of connectivity in the Eastern Caribbean post COVID. The demise of LIAT (1974) Ltd. should have taught us many lessons, one of which is less regulation, more competition, and reducing the high level of taxation at all our airports across the region to incentivize inter-regional travel.
Of course, this has always been easier said than done since most governments would prefer having a tax regime that is predictable, therefore charging all taxes (head taxes, security taxes, terminal taxes, passenger service fees etc.) at the point of entry. The next time you book a flight for your little Caribbean getaway, look at the breakdown of your ticket cost and you would be amazed just how many taxes and fees you are actually paying. Think how great it would be if all Governments in the OECS and CARICOM came to an agreement on one simple flat tax across the board, one that lowers the overall cost of inter-regional travel, increases passenger traffic, and benefits all our economies. Can we return to the glory days where a quick weekend getaway to Antigua and Barbuda, St. Vincent, St. Lucia, St. Kitts Nevis, Dominica, Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao, Grenada, Trinidad and Tobago, Saint Maarten/St. Martin etc. did not have to break the bank or require you to take out a small loan?
The question I keep asking myself, if the formula is simply:
airport tax reduction = more travelers = more revenue in taxes on back-end
(economic activity in country) …….
then why is there zero political will in getting this done?
We have all seen how the COVID-19 Pandemic ravaged our regional tourism sectors: airports closed, hotels closed, goods and service providers out of work, taxi drivers on indefinite pause, and the list goes on – think of how quickly we would have been able to bounce back if we truly invested in the potential of our own self-sufficiency and our innate desire to explore our “Caribbean-ness” by visiting our sister isles, sharing in our unique traditions and cultural heritage. The inter-regional tourism market is beaming with untapped potential and with all that is happening around the world, it’s time we really start investing in our own backyard. The external factors are too great a force to be reckoned with, we are at the mercy of global market trends, climate change, pandemics and economic uncertainty.
I say open up our Caribbean Skies, invest in our air network, increase frequency of flights between our Caribbean Islands, particularly in the Eastern Caribbean, we are too interconnected and interdependent to be subjected to one or two flights per week to any given destination – would you not love to be in Trinidad and Tobago on a Friday, hope over to Grenada to have some “oil down” on a Saturday Afternoon, pass through St. Vincent for a lime with friends on a Sunday and head straight to the office on a Monday morning in Antigua? Sadly, this may just be a pie in the sky dream. Unless, we are willing to have the hard conversations, demand more from our governments and leaders, and invest in us.
I remember paying just just about $260.00 EC dollars for a round trip ticket to Trinidad and Tobago in the early 2000s when LIAT and Caribbean Star were in heavy competition for their share of the market. Of course the cost of operations has increase five fold since then, but I refuse to believe that we can’t come up with something better that what currently obtains. The question is, do we have the will to do it? Greater connectivity is not just something we would like to do. With all that is happening in the world around us, its something we must do and do it the right way!
