A beleaguered Caribbean Airlines (CAL), whose long-standing yeoman service to the regional air transport industry is often forgotten amidst the slew of service-related criticisms that it has had to face in relatively recent years is still far from putting its problems behind it.
Caribbean Business Report disclosed last week that a recent internal company memorandum has disclosed that the regional air carrier will have to extend the cutoff date for its furloughs and salary cuts to April 15 next year.
The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc with the economic well-being of Caribbean Airlines, forcing the company into drastic cost-cutting measures including staff cuts and salary cuts for staff that have been retained. Those measures took effect from October. Last week, a document referred to by Caribbean Business Report as an “internal staff memo” circulated by the company’s Chief Executive Officer, Garvin Medera, gave notice of the extension of the time period for the furloughs and salary cuts, asserting that Caribbean Airlines was seeking to keep costs at an absolute minimum while it awaits the re-opening of Trinidad and Tobago’s borders.
The company has been struggling with keeping its operations going since the authorities in Port of Spain closed Trinidad & Tobago’s borders in March in a move to curb the spread of COVID-19.
The challenges confronting what was once considered the ‘work horse’ of the regional airline industry long predated the advent of COVID-19. Indeed, it was the limitations of Caribbean Airlines, not least flight schedule difficulties and sustained customer service-related complaints that opened the way for other extra-regional airlines, most of which provided services that resulted in an even higher decibel level of customer complaints, to ply their trade in the region.
But CAL has, over the years, been a consummate survivor. When, in the wake of COVID-19 and the attendant drastic decline in air travel the Centre for Aviation forecasted that by May 2020 most global airlines would face bankruptcy, the remark was confronted by a huge pushback from Caribbean Airlines, with a statement attributed to one of its Board Directors saying that that assertion bore no truth for Caribbean Airlines.
“The board and management have done a thorough analysis of the financial position and have confidence in our ability to weather the storm for the foreseeable future. There are clear plans in place to safeguard and mitigate any further financial pressures, and we continue to monitor and make adjustments as time passes. It is a dynamic situation and this position may change depending on the timeline of resumption of passenger service, which is outside of our control,” the Board member had been quoted in a section of the regional media as saying. At that time he also said that CAL had had contingency plans in place for the next six months.
Even with other commercial passenger services in the region suspended, Caribbean Airlines had been soldiering on, introducing a cargo service to respond to the growing market for the movement of food supplies and other cargo across the region. The airline also offered a barrel and e-container service out of New York, Fort Lauderdale and Miami to Jamaica, Guyana, Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago, that allows loved ones to ship care packages to their families.
CAL has been compelled to ground much of its fleet during the COVID-19 crisis.
