(Jamaica Observer) – There won’t be any announcement about the sale of Air Jamaica until April. Finance Minister Audley Shaw said this week that negotiations with Trinidad and Tobago’s national airline, Caribbean Airlines, remain on target but no announcement will come before his 2010/2011 Budget presentation scheduled to begin on April 1.

He also sought to make it clear that the negotiations with Caribbean Airlines was government’s focus now and not the recent bid put in by the Jamaica Airline Pilots Association (JALPA) to take over the national carrier.

Shaw said the pilots had come too late, noting that the government only received a business plan from the group within the last few days.

“JALPA has been sending correspondence to me and the prime minister for some months now but, as we have indicated, their interest, coming as late in the day as it has come, could not be allowed to supersede the procurement process which is clearly established,” he said.

“A successful consideration of JALPA’s interest, based on a business plan and a credible financing plan, would only be looked at within the context of a breakdown in talks with Caribbean Airlines, and then you would have to reopen the bidding process.”

Shaw revealed that there was also another expression of interest in the purchase of Air Jamaica from another overseas entity, but because it came late it was not being considered either.

The divestment process of Air Jamaica began in March last year, with Caribbean Airlines and Indigo Partners — a US-based airline investor — the first to indicate interest.