Antigua-based regional carriers Caribbean Star Airlines and Liat have set aside their long-time rivalry to work toward creating a new inter-island operator.
The new airline will combine the best of unprofitable Caribbean Star and Liat but will exclude Star's sister, Puerto Rico-based Caribbean Sun Airlines.
Skip Barnette, chief executive of Caribbean Star and Sun, says he "would like to see something very, very solid going into place around the first of the year". The easiest part of the exercise, says Barnette, "will be putting these two airlines together" because they "fly to the same places, fly the same airplanes" and both have similar facilities with employees who are familiar with each other.
Branding, though, is a challenge, because 50-year-old Liat still enjoys a lot of loyalty in the region. Barnette says an interim brand "that recognizes the history of both companies" is likely, although "my own personal opinion is that over the long-haul, it needs to have a new brand".
Meanwhile, higher-level discussions concerning the ownership structure of the new carrier are taking place among Caribbean Star's owner, businessman Allen Stanford, and the three island governments that own Liat: Antigua & Barbuda, Barbados, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
Until recently, a merger between Caribbean Star and Liat would have been out of the question. Since it launched service in 2000, Caribbean Star has been a fierce competitor to Liat, bringing load factors on overlapping routes down to as low as 30-40%. Relations began to thaw after former Unisys senior consultant Mark Darby joined long-struggling Liat this summer. Barnette had stepped down from Atlantic Southeast Airlines a year ago to head up Star and Sun.
The carriers each operate a fleet of 12 Bombardier Dash 8 turboprops on inter-island routes and combined now have a 28% share of the intra-Caribbean market, according to Innovata.
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Caribbean Star has been a fierce competitor to Liat on inter-island routes |
Source: Airline Business
