The peren­ni­al is­sue of the fi­nan­cial vi­a­bil­i­ty of Caribbean Air­lines (CAL) is again fig­ur­ing in na­tion­al dis­course, os­ten­si­bly cen­tred around mak­ing the air­line prof­itable again.

Based on our own ex­clu­sive re­port­ing in the Sun­day Guardian last week­end, we note that a fu­el sur­charge on tick­ets; re­moval of the Trinidad and To­ba­go in­ter-is­land air­bridge sub­sidy; an in­crease in the price of tick­ets and a fur­ther slash­ing of low­er rev­enue routes, are among the most re­cent op­tions put for­ward by the CAL board of di­rec­tors to the Min­istry of Fi­nance for con­sid­er­a­tion.

CAL is al­so seek­ing fur­ther sup­port from the State, which sources say could come in the form of a ma­jor debt write-off for the car­ri­er, which is cur­rent­ly sad­dled with a bil­lion-dol­lar debt.

How­ev­er, this sit­u­a­tion cer­tain­ly did not de­vel­op overnight. For decades, the air­line has been wedged-in with mul­ti­ple re­spon­si­bil­i­ties: A sym­bol of na­tion­al pride of an in­de­pen­dent coun­try, an as­sured means of trans­porta­tion for na­tion­als to com­mute around the re­gion, to North Amer­i­ca, and of­ten as a link to Eng­land and else­where on the Eu­ro­pean con­ti­nent.

Crit­i­cal­ly, and per­haps most con­tro­ver­sial­ly, CAL is the ma­jor, at times on­ly air link, for res­i­dents of To­ba­go to get to Trinidad to in­ter­act as part of the na­tion, and for them to utilise im­por­tant na­tion­al ser­vices.

CAL’s op­er­a­tions have al­so been in­volved in the pol­i­tics of the twin-is­land, which has be­come even more im­por­tant since the mid-1970s and the es­tab­lish­ment of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly. Con­tin­u­ous­ly, con­cerns have been raised about the na­tion­al air­line be­ing able to pro­vide vi­tal so­cial and eco­nom­ic ser­vices to res­i­dents, es­pe­cial­ly those liv­ing in To­ba­go.

In such a con­text, it is of­ten point­ed out that in many in­stances, res­i­dents of To­ba­go have to trek to Trinidad through the ser­vices of CAL, which are claimed not to be re­li­able and fair to those na­tion­als liv­ing in To­ba­go.

Equal­ly im­por­tant is the ab­solute re­quire­ment for CAL to pro­vide a vi­tal link to the tourism in­dus­try for leisure and plea­sure, the main el­e­ment of the in­dus­try be­ing lo­cat­ed in To­ba­go.

To com­pli­cate mat­ters even more, Ja­maica is a mi­nor­i­ty share­hold­er in CAL and giv­en that coun­try’s ma­jor tourism in­dus­try, the air­line al­so has to serve that pur­pose, and al­so for trade with­in Cari­com.

How­ev­er, when­ev­er geo-pol­i­tics, tied in­to eco­nom­ics, be­come of in­ter­na­tion­al sig­nif­i­cance, or when fu­el prices, po­lit­i­cal and mil­i­tary chal­lenges are as­so­ci­at­ed with air trav­el, such as the present, CAL faces seem­ing­ly un­con­quer­able chal­lenges with the T&T Gov­ern­ment be­ing re­quired to meet the fi­nan­cial needs.

When all of the above chal­lenges are added to those present in the air­line in­dus­try in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, talk aris­es about the need to sell-off the as­sets of Caribbean Air­lines, which begs the ques­tion of the air­line’s sur­vival.

It is in such a con­text that the fu­ture of the na­tion­al-re­gion­al air­line has to be con­sid­ered.

No mere tra­di­tion­al busi­ness plan can meet all of the needs of the above and many more. Quick­ie so­lu­tions and changes in board di­rec­tors and man­age­ment have sim­ply not worked. A ma­jor op­er­a­tional plan based on the na­ture and re­quire­ments of the air­line, re­searched and de­vel­oped by a pro­fes­sion­al group, is ur­gent­ly need­ed.