(Trinidad Express) State-owned Caribbean Airlines (CAL) is in danger of being downgraded, People’s National Movement (PNM) Senator Lester Henry said yesterday.
Speaking in the debate on the Supplementary Appropriation Bill in the Senate, at Tower D, International Waterfront Centre, Port of Spain, he said if the population thought things were bad at CAL, they were about to get worse.
He said the two planes that were supposed to fly the London route were not approved, and there was a possibility the airline could be downgraded.
“And that would be a disaster for us,” he said.
“Oh Lord, God! Serious?” asked Fitzerald Hinds.
“Yes, and the morale of the people at Caribbean Airlines has hit rock bottom,” Henry said.
He said the expansion of the routes was being done in a vis-a-vis manner by the airline.
Henry said one needed to train pilots for months to fly new planes.
“You can’t just take someone from flying an Airbus and put them to fly a (Boeing) 767. It’s two completely different systems. So pilots have to be retrained. And one of the problems in the airline is that they have been hurrying the training, trying to push people into flying these planes without going through the complete cycle of training. That is one of the problems,” he said.
Henry said the airline was a complete and total disaster waiting to happen, and the Government needed to take responsibility.
He said he did not blame the Finance Minister for this state of affairs completely because he tried to intervene last year and was slapped down.
He said Works Minister Jack Warner also tried to intervene, and he was demoted and “given half of his ministry”.
Noting that Dookeran revealed the tremendous losses being incurred by Caribbean Airlines, he said Government continued the irresponsibility in the management of the airline. It continued to appoint people who were not suited to be on the board of directors, he said.
He said Caribbean Airlines is in such a calamitous state that the country will be hearing about major problems.
On the economy, Henry said Finance Minister Dookeran was presiding over a prolonged period of economic stagnation and recession, and nothing he did made any difference.
The PNM Senator noted that the small islands of the Caribbean such as Barbados and Grenada, which had no natural resources as this country did, were generating positive growth while this country was not.
Noting that last year, energy prices were high, he said this Government, “like the West Indies (cricket) team, was grabbing defeat from the jaws of victory”.
Henry also said while Dookeran was talking about spending more, he was saying nothing about raising more revenue. He said the energy sector could be in a deep, prolonged crisis.
