Above: Barbados PM Freundel Stuart (CJ Photo)

By the Caribbean Journal staff

Barbados will continue to support the operations of regional air carrier LIAT, Prime Minister Freundel Stuart said this week.

The PM was speaking following a meeting at the Hilton Barbados of LIAT’s major stakeholders: St Vincent and the Grenadines, represented by Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves; Antigua PM Baldwin Spencer and Dominica PM Roosevelt Skerrit.

“It can only remain viable if it is financed, and Barbados, therefore, has had no difficulty in committing itself to that course of action,” he said. “So, as the largest shareholder at the present time, we felt that it was our duty to live up to our regional obligations and we are doing just that.”

He said that LIAT had contributed over the last 56 years “in no small way” to the deepening of the Caribbean integration movement.

“Since Barbados has always been in the forefront of promoting regional integration, of course we have a natural attachment to LIAT and its success,” he said. “So I approached [the] discussions in that context, and have been satisfied with the way the discussions have gone.”

He acknowledged that the carrier’s fleet was aging, with the average age of the company’s planes about 20 years old.

“LIAT has an enviable safety record, but we cannot push our luck too far in that regard,” he said. “We cannot tempt the gods.”

Gonsalves said LIAT needed to expand its network and go into areas “we have not gone before.”

“LIAT is a huge industry and we are on target with renewal and expansion and we have to come again to the board, looking at strategic partners in that regard,” he said.

LIAT has 1,000 flights each week to 21 destinations in the Caribbean.