An­tigua and Bar­bu­da Prime Min­is­ter Gas­ton Browne has un­der­scored the im­por­tance of the re­gion­al air­line, LI­AT 2020 to the Caribbean as the St. John’s based air­line made its in­au­gur­al flight in­to Guyana on Tues­day evening.

Browne, who was among a num­ber of dig­ni­taries that marked the oc­ca­sion, said that LI­AT 2020 is a far stronger and bet­ter-cap­i­talised air­line than its pre­de­ces­sor, which went bank­rupt in Jan­u­ary this year.

“We have in­vest­ed al­most EC$200 mil­lion (One EC dol­lar=US$0.37 cents), mak­ing LI­AT 2020 the best-cap­i­talised air­line op­er­at­ing in the Caribbean to­day,” Browne said, re­as­sur­ing the pub­lic of the air­line’s sta­bil­i­ty and longevi­ty.

The share­hold­er gov­ern­ments of the for­mer LI­AT (1974) air­line are An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, Bar­ba­dos, Do­mini­ca, and St Vin­cent and the Grenadines.

An­tigua and Bar­bu­da is in­volved in an agree­ment with the pri­vate Niger­ian-based air­line, Air Peace, in the es­tab­lish­ment of LI­AT 2020 air­line and ear­li­er this year Prime Min­is­ter Browne had said that Air Peace would be putting in close to US$65 mil­lion, while his gov­ern­ment is in­vest­ing US$20 mil­lion.

In ad­di­tion, the An­tigua and Bar­bu­da gov­ern­ment said it would pay US$12.1 mil­lion in­to an es­crow ac­count for the ac­qui­si­tion of oth­er planes owned by the Bar­ba­dos-based Caribbean De­vel­op­ment Bank (CDB).

Browne told the cer­e­mo­ny the col­lab­o­ra­tion with Niger­ian-based air­line opens up new pos­si­bil­i­ties for transat­lantic trav­el, with plans to add a larg­er 125-seater air­craft next year, fur­ther ex­tend­ing the air­line’s reach be­yond the Caribbean.

Guyana’s Pub­lic Works Min­is­ter, Bish­op Juan Edghill, spoke of the sig­nif­i­cance of LI­AT 2020’s ar­rival in Guyana.

He said that Guyana’s avi­a­tion sec­tor has ex­pe­ri­enced sub­stan­tial growth since 2020, dri­ven by both strate­gic in­vest­ments in in­fra­struc­ture and the coun­try’s grow­ing eco­nom­ic im­por­tance on the glob­al stage.

“Every week, LI­AT 2020 will add 796 seats with eight flights to Guyana, and that’s a big, big im­prove­ment,” Edghill said, not­ing that the grow­ing de­mand for air trav­el was not just about in­creased pas­sen­ger num­bers but about pro­vid­ing de­pend­able ser­vice to the pub­lic.

“Guyanese, the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, and the tourism sec­tor on­ly ask for three things: pre­dictabil­i­ty, re­li­a­bil­i­ty, and con­sis­ten­cy. We want to know that when we show up, we can get our flight, just like any­where else in the world,” he said, re­in­forc­ing the ex­pec­ta­tions for the air­line’s per­for­mance.

GEORGE­TOWN, Guyana, Nov 20, CMC –

CMC/gt/ir/2024