Rather than try­ing to de­vel­op a re­gion­al car­ri­er, Caribbean coun­tries should fo­cus on im­prov­ing their tourism prod­ucts and forg­ing strate­gic al­liances with for­eign air­lines, tour op­er­a­tors and trav­el agents to en­sure suf­fi­cient in­ter­na­tion­al air­lift in­to the re­gion.That is the view of in­ter­na­tion­al con­sul­tant, writer, and for­mer Caribbean se­nior diplo­mat Sir Ronald Sanders, who said the col­lec­tive in­ter­est of the re­gion is not be­ing served by "the con­tin­u­ous at­tempt to main­tain 'na­tion­al­ly-owned' air­lines to fly in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.

"Hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars have been spent on loss-mak­ing air­lines over the years that could have been spent on build­ing need­ed in­fra­struc­ture, or on ed­u­ca­tion, train­ing in new and health," he wrote in an op-ed pub­lished by on-line news site Caribbean 360.Sir Ronald quot­ed one fre­quent Caribbean trav­eller who said an "in­ap­pro­pri­ate busi­ness mod­el is still be­ing used to op­er­ate Caribbean Air­lines (CAL) at great cost and heavy loss­es".

Sir Ronald said while CAL would not be missed from the mar­ket­place, the same is not true for the oth­er air­line in the re­gion, LI­AT, which "can be self-suf­fi­cient and can eas­i­ly ac­quire the ca­pa­bil­i­ty for mod­est link­ages with the Amer­i­c­as to en­sure that we will not be cut off".He wrote: "An­oth­er cer­tain­ty in this en­tire is­sue is that trav­ellers with­in the Caribbean are be­ing sub­ject­ed to high cost of trav­el that in­cludes high gov­ern­ment tax­es.

"Be­yond that, the ser­vice be­ing pro­vid­ed by both the present sched­uled air­lines–Caribbean Air­lines and LI­AT– is less than re­li­able. Fre­quent flight de­lays and in some cas­es can­cel­la­tions have cost Caribbean trav­ellers and tourists both mon­ey and in con­ve­nience."

Ac­cord­ing to Sir Ronald, even col­lec­tive­ly, Cari­com gov­ern­ments can­not af­ford an in­ter­na­tion­al car­ri­er, so they should aban­don the idea and in­stead fo­cus on an air­line that pro­vides in­ter-Caribbean ser­vice on­ly. "In­ter-Caribbean ser­vice is vi­tal­ly need­ed for tourism and com­merce and there are no for­eign car­ri­ers pro­vid­ing such a ser­vice," he said.

"The Caribbean busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty that ben­e­fits from in­ter-Caribbean trans­port should be en­cour­aged to par­tic­i­pate in such an in­ter-Caribbean air­line, shar­ing the risks, con­tribut­ing to de­ci­sion-mak­ing at board lev­el and pro­vid­ing the ben­e­fit of their busi­ness ex­pe­ri­ence and knowl­edge."