Basseterre---16 Sept. 2006---The impact of LIAT’s overhauling and restructuring programme is reaching St. Kitts. CEO of LIAT Mark Darby says the airline will be cutting back on its services to increase its revenue.

“I’ve been in the business for the past two months and since my arrival, I’ve been looking at the business, including current seats, that is how many seats we offer every week to each destination and we’ve always had a reasonable summer period in July and August.

“It is clear that in the quieter months we were offering too many flights to too many destinations and in doing so, it means that we are flying around lots of empty seats and have to pay for fuel, aircraft maintenance, landing charges, etc.

“So overall, we’ve been trying to look at the schedule and look for opportunities to trim our costs and to look more closely at matching our revenues,” Darby told the SUN.

Scaling back its operations also means laying off a significant portion of its staff.

“In the first instance, we are going to scale back our flying programme by about 20 per cent of so, which means that if we’re flying 20 per cent less, we would need 20 per cent less pilots and cabin crew.

“We’ve been in active discussions with our unions for the last three weeks, talking to them about our programme, what we’re trying to do and why we’re trying to do it,” Darby added.

The LIAT CEO said the move will have no effect on St. Kitts and that LIAT will be offering its full service to St. Kitts.

However, a duty free shop at the Robert L. Bradshaw International Airport that has been operated by LIAT for more than 20 years is now up for sale.

Offers are invited for the purchase of the duty free shop lease, its fixtures and stock. The size of the shop is 18.5 square feet and tenders are asked to send their sealed bids by 30 Sept., to the Legal Department, LIAT (1974) Ltd, P.O. Box 819, Coolidge, Antigua.

“The duty free shop in St. Kitts is a very, very small part of our operations. It’s the only shop that we have. I’m not sure why we ever had it and it really doesn’t fit with our business portfolio going forward, so we have decided to sell it sometime before we announced the restructuring. So we are getting rid of a small piece of our business that we no longer need,” Darby said.

This indicates that one of the two individuals in St. Kitts employed by LIAT will lose her job.

Meanwhile, Darby said the airline will concentrate more on its marketing campaign.

“We are putting more and more emphasis on our marketing, something LIAT has not been too good at in the past and we have been running a number of promotions, such as the daily low fare and the flight for a dollar, which ends today.

“I think it is a great product and it certainly seems to be appealing. We’ve had a record number of hits on our Internet site and calls to our call centre. All I can say is…look out for the rest of our offers,” Darby said.

LIAT is principally owned by the governments of the Eastern Caribbean.

Source: SunSt. Kitts.com