Head of Corporate Communications at BWIA, Dionne Ligoure, told the Express yesterday that it is important to note that the Miami office is not being shut down but that customer service will be "outsourced".

This means that services such as ticketing, check-in, arrival and transfer services, gate and baggage-handling duties will be provided by a foreign airline.

In the meantime, about 20 Miami-based employees have cried foul as they are being sent home.

However, as the State gears up to finish disband what was a "national icon" by December 31, foreign airlines Servisair and Swissport International may be picking up the crushed local airline's duties.

Servisair already has a presence at Piarco International Airport-two years ago one of its ground-handling vehicles damaged a number of aircraft, including a BWIA plane that it collided with in June, 2004.

Nine days later, the same machine ran into a Continental plane that was on the ground.

Swissport does have a local presence but operates passenger and ramp-handling services around the world.

BWIA, which will leave the business with one of the cleanest flying records in the history of aviation, will be replaced by the new carrier Caribbean Airlines. The staff would have been whittled from 1,800 employees to about 550, according to BWIA CEO Peter Davies.

BWIA departments expected to face the axe include the airline's reservations office at Edward Street, Port of Spain, its Piarco service-which will eliminate about 130 of its 150 employees and its Barbados office, which is also being considered for outsourcing.