Trinidad & Tobago plants its flag in corporate Jamaica

[Karl]

Apparently the goodwill associated with the Air Jamaica brand isn't worth very much if shutting down the airline is the way to go. And that is a no-brainer if you're essentially the only game in town.

One of the reasons I do not relish visiting other small islands is that LIAT is so deplorablr in its bagage handling and punctuality standards I stay away. One thing I must say is that Caribbean Airlines is pretty much on time.

Am I right in thinking, you find this very sad...and you would not like to see AirJ go?

...but do you think, unfortunate...but we must go this way?

[Peter R]

Definitely sad to see Air JA go for sentimental reasons...for practical ones maybe this was inevitable. However, having a tourist industry I thought might have made it imperative to maintain a domestic airline albeit in another form... Caribbean Airlines is simply BWIA in a new suit; what the T&T govt. did was to wind up the old airline, cut their losses (paid VSEP, severance etc) and ran with a new entity that seems to be more productive and less of a losing proposition... they have maintained a national airline even though they do have the kind of traffic JA does.

I'm not sure why we couldn't have done something similar, that is, get rid of the deadwood and come back with a leaner meaner Air JA...

[Karl]

Definitely sad to see Air JA go for sentimental reasons...for practical ones maybe this was inevitable. However, having a tourist industry I thought might have made it imperative to maintain a domestic airline albeit in another form... Caribbean Airlines is simply BWIA in a new suit; what the T&T govt. did was to wind up the old airline, cut their losses (paid VSEP, severance etc) and ran with a new entity that seems to be more productive and less of a losing proposition...

...that is exactly what they claim they shall do with AirJ.

...get rid of the deadwood and come back with a leaner meaner Air JA...

Still cannot see why we cannot do that ourselves!