Q & A with Jean Holder, Former Secretary-General of the Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO) and currently chairman of LIAT airline

Q.- Following your long tenure at the helm of CTO, when did you actually join LIAT?
A.- I left CTO at the end of 2004 and commenced here (at LIAT). As a matter of fact, I was on leave before I left CTO and I actually started here in August 2004, so it’s just three years that have gone by.

Q.- What’s your current position within LIAT? Are you holding the executive post or are you acting as Chairman of the Board of Directors?
A.- As Chairman of the Board, I’m responsible for the overall guidance of the airline and for the policy of the airline. I oversee the specific technical aspects of the carrier and the execution of the technical aspects of the carrier done by the management staff.

Q.- Is your entry in this organization opening up new destinations for LIAT?
A.- Not actually. We’ve been serving the region for 51 years and LIAT is the Caribbean carrier by name and nature because it’s not only a Caribbean-owned airline, but also because it serves some 22 destinations in the Caribbean. It goes as far as Jamaica and covers everything from the Dominican Republic down to Caracas, Guyana, all the countries in between. All of them are served by LIAT.

Q.- Your position in this company, in LIAT, is very important because you know probably better than no one else the relationships and the specifics of the Caribbean. How is that position of yours helping LIAT expand to other markets?
A.- I have been, as you know, working for Caribbean tourism over the last 30 years and if there’s one thing I have discovered is that the most critical element of the tourism industry is air access. When you’re having a tourism product in an archipelago, in a region consisting of islands, it is critical that you not only have air access, but also that this air access is affordable, that it connects the territories and it enables people to have access to that tourism product, so that you can sell that tourism product as successfully as you can and bring the markets to the destinations.

So, LIAT now being the surviving regional carrier –which really connects the region- has a critical role to play, not only as a bus service connecting all the region in terms of business and commerce, but also because it’s the key to the tourism industry in the 22 countries which are served by the airline.

Q.- Does LIAT have different agreements with air carriers from Europe and America to clinch passenger transportation across the Caribbean?
A.- Yes, we have interline arrangements with almost all the carriers –we either have those arrangements or we are in the process of making them- because for major carriers flying to the Caribbean it’s not worthwhile to fly beyond many of the hubs into several destinations. Therefore, LIAT is the carrier that for the most part connects up the traffic between the major long-haul destinations, the major marketplaces, and the various destinations.

There’s a number of carriers that have direct services, but even so all the countries in the Caribbean do not have airports that can accommodate some of the equipment that’s flown by major carriers. So, in any case, either on a cost basis or on a national infrastructure basis, LIAT plays a critical role of connecting up the Caribbean with its services.

Q.- Is LIAT now flying to Panama?
A.- No, LIAT does not fly to Panama. LIAT flies as far south as Guyana and Curacao, and then as far north as the Dominican Republic. It flies to Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, everything in between and everything south of Trinidad.

Q.- Aren’t you considering the possibility of opening new flights to Costa Rica, Panama and the rest of Central America?
A.- I think that taking note of the history of LIAT, LIAT has been for 51 years the carrier of Eastern Caribbean. Like all other carriers, it has endured a number of economic challenges. We have gotten LIAT to the point in 2007 where it’s getting rid of a large accumulated debt of hundreds of millions of dollars and it’s beginning to break even in terms of its commercial operations.

We believe that we need to have a period of consolidation where we make sure that we can build on the successes we’ve had in 2007 before we start stretching ourselves beyond the present footprint that we have now. I’m not saying that in time, as the airline grows and progresses, that we won’t look to an expansion. But I do think that for the moment it would be wise for us to consolidate. If we’re going to grow, we must grow within the present footprint that we have for the next two years, anyway.