Merge all the airlines in the Caribbean and make one

Why do we maintain all these different airlines in the Caribbean region? Last week I received yet another petition going around calling on the Surinamese government to keep Suriname Airways ticket prices affordable.

In the spirit of we have to ... no, we can do it better together, my brain automatically starts screaming:

"Close that thing down!"

No, listen now! Hear me out. Why does Suriname need an airline that doesn't own its own aircraft, but which is still in the red for millions, where there is constant corruption due to political interference, where each of the hundreds of unnecessary employees and their families are allowed to travel almost for free, which hardly ever departs on time and which cannot compete with major players?

Close that thing down. And set up a Caribbean company together with the former colonies in Caricom. It will leave the competition behind.

Continuous losses

A little general history lesson on post-colonial movements shows that former colonies all did three things upon their independence. 1. They chose a currency, 2. They launched a national anthem and 3. They started a national airline. All of them!

Jamaica started Air Jamaica, Antigua started LIAT, Trinidad had Caribbean Airlines, a controversial Texan billionaire started Caribbean Star in Antigua, Curacao founded ALM and later Insel Air. On the Windward Islands, Winair flies between St. Maarten, Saba, St. Eustatius and St. Barths and now also to St. Kitts & Nevis. Guyana started Air Guyana and Suriname founded Suriname Airways.

And they are all ailing. In fact, half of them no longer exist.

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LIAT, based in Antigua, and Caribbean Airlines from Trinidad are the best known and oldest in the region.

LIAT collapsed spectacularly in 2020, owing $80 million to staff and $100 million to creditors. The company resumed flights to a limited number of island destinations, but soon ran into certification problems with shareholder countries Barbados and St. Vincent.

In Trinidad, the government gave Caribbean Airlines a $65 million subsidy during Covid. Employee salaries were also cut by as much as 20 percent.

In Curacao, there was ALM; initially started in collaboration with KLM and in 1969 the Netherlands Antilles took a majority stake, and the company became known as ALM-Antillean Airlines. In 1977, ALM took over Winair.

After 1969, however, ALM went downhill, reportedly due to corruption. In 1986, when Aruba obtained separate status within the Kingdom, it then formed its own airline, Air Aruba, which became a direct competitor of ALM. Both companies flew the same routes!!!!

From 1979 onwards ALM went into the red; it continued to simmer for a while but somewhere around the turn of the century the company ceased to exist.

In the meantime, Insel Air was founded; it was operational from 2006, with Hato Airport as its home base. It flew to 21 destinations in America.

But by early 2017 the airline was struggling with payment problems. The Curaçao government provided a total of 17 million euros in support, with which it acquired 51 percent of the shares of Insel Air. Gilles Filiatreault was appointed as crisis manager to get Insel Air back on track. In February 2019 Insel Air was declared bankrupt.

Bahamas Air probably has losses between 50 and $ 60 million dollars.

And there are a few more of these kinds of stories in the Caribbean.

And yes, Suriname Airways is also barely keeping aflight. Besides the fact that SLM had almost 88 million dollars in debt in 2020 (probably even more now), it has of course not contributed to the state income for years. The company did not get the certification of a leased Boeing 777, because it was grounded for a year while millions in lease payments were outstanding.

And then we have not even mentioned the problems surrounding appointments and other practices that smack of corruption. A lot of commotion last year when the Dutch manager who was supposed to take the company to new heights, spectacularly fled back home via French Guyana with his family; he complained afterwards that he was at the president's beck and call at all times.

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Do you see the trend? All in need and heavily subsidized by their governments. Operationally, it doesn't make sense anywhere and everywhere the people are asking Governments to keep prices affordable. Surinamese people are proud that the food on board SLM flights is the tastiest, but they still prefer to fly to the Netherlands with KLM because SLM is not reliable. Same goes for people in the Caribbean.

KLM, British Airways, Air France and major US airlines dominate the region. They have a monopoly, with dire consequences! It is easier to fly from Europe to the Caribbean than it is to travel within the region. And because the foreign companies have a monopoly, they determine how expensive the tickets should be. And the Caribbean companies, which often have far fewer aircraft, tag behind.

Symptom

You could call it chronic, post-colonial mismanagement, but you would then only be naming the symptom; proper management alone would not solve the problem. The solution lies in the eagle's perspective. Suriname and the Caribbean represent a market of more than 17 million people; larger than the Netherlands, which has one national carrier. It would be something if there was one for every province. America does not have one for every state, now does it?

Why then do the countries in the region have dozens of them?

KLM has 548 aircraft, large and small ones  and it serves every corner of the globe. And above all, they are the masters of European skies! A trip to London or Paris costs 200 euros and you can fly several times a day.

Set up one Caribbean company with a Caribbean crew; the people are already trained; the infrastructure is already there. The planes are there too. There is no lack of expertise. There is no lack of management experience either; all regional companies just can't seem to get to cruising altitude, so our managers know better than anyone what not to do.

And you can eat from a different Caribbean country every day, if that is so important. Monday roti, Tuesday doubles, Wednesday goat stew or locri and so on.

Intra-regional travel

This Caribbean company can serve the 17 million people of the region on the intra-regional market and the Transatlantic routes. And there is also an untapped market of possibilities to Latin America. And the French islands also offer options. Those are also several million people.

As long as the countries in the Caribbean do not join forces, they are collectively missing out on a billion-dollar market for intra-regional tourism. The Caribbean islands earn a lot of money from the Americans and Europeans with their beaches, but their own inhabitants do not often go on holiday in the region because the beautiful destinations two hours away are more difficult to reach than Amsterdam. While it might be interesting for a tourist from Barbados to experience the diverse Surinamese cultures or the mysterious rainforests this country shares with Guyana. And for Surinamese nationals there is probably something to do in the region every month, Crop Over in Barbados, Trinidad Carnival, the nightlife of Negril OMG!

Also consider that Caribbean people do not need visa to travel to each other's countries, but they do need one to visit the country of their former colonizers or America.

They play us off against each other, and we not only prefer to fly with their aircraft ... we hand them the monopoly for free. And our deliberately distressed companies then compete with them, making tickets completely unaffordable.

And then the people complain.

It is ironic when we employ their people to come and run our companies, which they already know will remain distressed due to the economic scale.

Wait... you didn't really think they were sending us their best people, did you? Of course they keep those for their own companies!

Africa

Want to make it even more interesting? Africa is the next big thing and from the Caribbean you could be there in a few hours, if there were direct flights. Now you have to fly to Europe or the US first and then transit from there with KLM or another European or American company. A Caribbean company could be the dominant force on the Caribbean/Africa route!

And incidentally, the same thing that is happening in the Caribbean is also happening in Africa. Each country has its own national carrier, which makes continental travel a challenge. And there too, the monopolistic companies of the former colonizer are the big players where an intercontinental company should offer the solution.

The African countries represent a market of 1.5 billion people that we completely ignore because we are too inward-looking in our misplaced national pride.

Suriname and the Caribbean are an unprecedented flight market, but together we keep companies alive that compete with each other at sky-high rates. Merge them all into one company.

Price manipulation

So if you want a solution to the unaffordable airline prices to Suriname and the Caribbean, stop those petitions asking governments to manipulate the rates of companies. The other airlines are really not going to lower their rates; that is not a good business strategy and not what monopolists do.

Our own airlines may do so under political pressure, but then they would in fact be giving in to your request that they do not do proper business;  to your request for political interference. Then you should not complain about corruption.

No. Price manipulation is not what governments are there for. They are there to facilitate.

So come up with a petition that calls on governments to facilitate better business. In this case, more strategic airline business with a broader view and a more sustainable outlook that benefits everyone.

How do you finance this, you ask?

Well, Europe owes the former colonies reparations, doesn't it? Invest that in strategies that multiply the money... this is one of them. And that way, Caricom also has a real function.

What should you call it?

I don't know. The Caribbean Flying Lion; Watch it soar and roar? I don't know, but I'm not going to come up with everything here either. I'm on holiday too.