(Trinidad Express) Caribbean Airlines (CAL) expects to break even on its London route sometime this year, the company’s chairman Rabindra Moonan said yesterday.
This is earlier than the three-year period previously anticipated when CAL launched its Port of Spain to Gatwick, London, route just about a year ago.
“The London route was supposed to be six flights to Gatwick, but management made a decision, and the board approved, for two flights a week. We have now gone to three flights a week and the load factor on those flights is close to 90 per cent and whereas we thought it would have taken three years to break even, we will hit the break-even point sometime this year and we are very proud and happy about that,” Moonan said in a telephone interview.
He said the transformation and restructuring programme for the State-owned airline was going “very well” and the board was pleased with its progress.
“I think there are better days ahead. On a larger scale we are very happy in the direction the airline is taking.”
The airline is also looking to increase its service from Georgetown, Guyana, to New York, USA.
Commenting on a report in the Trinidad Guardian yesterday, Moonan said the decision to grant 19 complimentary air travel tickets as per a request by Caribbean Airlines vice-chairman Mohan Jaikaran did not require board approval, but was instead issued through the company’s marketing department.
Moonan said the tickets were part of CAL’s sponsorship efforts and as far as he was aware (through newspaper reports), the tickets were intended for the performers at concerts to be held in New York and Toronto, Canada.
“I have no information or knowledge that he (Jaikaran) used his position for his friends… They are not friends. What I read in the newspaper is they belong to the bands that are going to the Diaspora in Toronto and New York, and when these shows are held, it is advertised who is sponsoring or part-sponsoring. We sponsor so many things in this country and we do in fact get mileage from it—we sponsored the 2012 Olympic team with air travel and it never made headlines,” he said.
The Guardian reported yesterday that CAL staff were “angry over a US$20,000 trip for 19 friends” requested by Jaikaran, when the airline was supposed to be strapped for cash.
The Sunday Express had reported in April that the company was facing $1.4 billion debt.
“I am not aware of all the sponsorship in which we are involved because that is not a board decision. (Sponsorship) is handled really by the marketing department. Once they are satisfied that we get mileage, they go ahead and (approve sponsorship),” Moonan said.
Line Minister for Caribbean Airlines, Minister of State in the Finance Ministry Vasant Bharath, who is also Corporation Sole and therefore has responsibility for State enterprises, said both he and Finance Minster Larry Howai have requested a full report from Moonan on this matter.
“There was a previous report of a similar nature but which has not been substantiated, but we hope to get it soon…It would be premature to say anything until we get that report,” Bharath told reporters at Hyatt Regency (Trinidad), Port of Spain, yesterday.
