Antigua and Barbuda’s Minister of Tourism and Civil Aviation, John Maginley, has responded to recent comments by his St Lucian counterpart, Allen Chastanet, about the regional airline LIAT.
During Sunday’s Big Issues programme, Senator Allen Chastanet, who holds similar portfolios in the Castries government, called for a major overhaul of LIAT’s board of directors, and for a change in the way the airline conducts business.
But Maginley told The Daily OBSERVER yesterday that he considers Chastanet to be out of place, since St Lucia is not among the shareholder governments.
“I agree 100 per cent with the Prime Minister of St Vincent,” Maginley said, referring to comments by Ralph Gonsalves on the previous Big Issues programme. “As a shareholder, we will decide who the board of directors are, not Minister Chastanet.”
He added, “I find it surprising that he would venture into telling the shareholders of a private company how they should conduct their business. We don’t come to St Lucia and do that. If we need his advice we’ll ask, and if Minister Chastanet wants to have a say, put money up like the rest of us and come on board.”
Maginley said Chastanet “could not prove half the things he was talking about.”
The tourism minister dismissed as nonsense Chastanet’s claim that LIAT was unnecessarily assigning aircraft to unprofitable routes, in order to stamp out all competition.
“This thing about monopoly, there are a number of airlines that have come to challenge LIAT on all kinds of routes and nobody is stopping them. Who is stopping them? Nobody is stopping anybody from flying on any routes. But what people have to understand is that if there is a route that makes money, why shouldn’t LIAT respond to somebody coming to try and just cherry pick that one route and not want to do the other routes?” Maginley asked.
Regarding Chastanet’s call for ‘others to be given an opportunity,’ Maginley said, “it’s his business. If he wants to come on board, come on board and be an airliner . . . LIAT has a role to play for its shareholders and we will continue to do that, whether he likes it or not.”
(More in today’s Daily OBSERVER)
Maginley has more gall than anyone, instead of conceeding that the island owners could do a better job with LIAT in the region and allow for cheaper travel between the islands he utters irate nonsense. Can this man perceive what would happen if the rates on LIAT were lowered to promote inter island travel, how it would improve the tourism dollar coming in lets say on a weekend. There are only two ways to get to any of these islands and it is by air or sea, this is not the first time that Chastanet has talked about LIAT and its costs, and he is right. LIAT is pure bad business for the region and the people.
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LIAT REMINDS ME OF THE MOVIE,THE MONEY PIT.THAT HAD TO DO WITH A HOUSE,THIS IS ABOUT AN AIRLINE.PERHAPS A MOVIE SHOULD BE MADE ABOUT LIAT,ENTITLED BOTTOMLESS PIT.
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