Dear Editor

I heard the news Saturday evening that the CEOs of LIAT and REDjet clashed at the CTO State of the Industry Conference in St Maarten.

Instead of disagreements, they should team up to press LIAT’s three shareholder governments – and support the PM of St Vincent and the Grenadines – in making it clear that we are tired of subsidising the nationals of the other 19 destinations.

The talk about unity should manifest itself in actions, not three islands’ taxpayers making it cheaper for the rest in the region to travel without their governments making any contributions.

Overstaffing should be addressed in this age of online booking and freebies should be limited to employees and one other family member. Children 12 and under should be allowed to travel at half the airfare.

As a pensioner, I would like to take the occasional day or weekend trip to one of the other islands with some form of discount or concession, but the fares are no different than booking weeks in advance.

There is no ferry service as an alternative so the LIAT CEO should be fighting for his taxpaying customers so that they get a fair deal.

The safety record of LIAT is beyond question compared to most of the other airlines, and that is a big plus. But LIAT should not use that record to keep the airfares so outrageously high.