JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Thursday, July 24, 2025

Aviation body advises CAL: Drop London route

by

20140423

The CA­PA Cen­tre for Avi­a­tion has ad­vised Caribbean Air­lines to drop its Lon­don route and code share with British Air­ways "to im­prove its for­tunes." The 24-year-old CA­PA Cen­tre for Avi­a­tion, a "provider of in­de­pen­dent avi­a­tion mar­ket in­tel­li­gence, analy­sis and da­ta ser­vices, cov­er­ing world­wide de­vel­op­ments," head­quar­tered in Syd­ney, Aus­tralia, with of­fices in In­dia, the UK and the US.

CA­PA said in a re­cent analy­sis: "While Caribbean Air­lines might have some trac­tion in point-of-sale in the Port-of-Spain mar­ket, mak­ing in­roads in the Lon­don mar­ket was al­ways chal­leng­ing giv­en that Vir­gin At­lantic serves Bridgetown in Bar­ba­dos from Gatwick, and Mon­tego Bay and Gatwick, a route al­so served by Thom­son Air­ways. British Air­ways op­er­ates ser­vice from Gatwick to Kingston."

The an­a­lysts said at one point CAL's fore­run­ner, BWIA, code­shared with British Air­ways on ser­vice from Lon­don to the Caribbean, and "it may be time for re­con­sid­er­a­tion of that po­ten­tial. "Caribbean Air­lines is the largest car­ri­er in Kingston, so a code­share with British Air­ways could cer­tain­ly prove more vi­able than a mere three week­ly long-haul flights that are los­ing mon­ey."

In the Sen­ate on April 2, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Lar­ry Howai, the line min­is­ter for CAL ad­mit­ted in re­sponse to an op­po­si­tion ques­tion that the Lon­don route has not been prof­itable.CA­PA said if the CAL board "which has been a re­volv­ing door dur­ing the last cou­ple of years, is giv­ing se­ri­ous analy­sis to route per­for­mance, then cut­ting ser­vice to Gatwick and shed­ding the air­craft used for those flights should be­come a key pri­or­i­ty in the changes nec­es­sary to im­prove Caribbean's for­tunes".

New pres­sure from Jet­Blue

CAL is al­so fac­ing in­creased com­pe­ti­tion on some its key North Amer­i­can routes as Jet­Blue launch­es flights from Port-of-Spain to its strong­holds of JFK and Fort Laud­erdale, CA­PA said. Pri­or to Jet­Blue's launch, CAL held a mo­nop­oly on ser­vice from Port of Spain to JFK.It ap­pears that Jet­Blue's en­try has ra­tio­nalised pric­ing in the mar­ket, CA­PA said. The 30-day mov­ing av­er­age fare on the pair­ing was about US$913 on April 20, 2013, but dropped to US$668 by April 20, 2014,

Jet­Blue's in­au­gur­al flight from Port-of-Spain to Fort Laud­erdale is set for May 1. Jet­Blue's 34-inch seat pitch is roomi­er than Caribbean Air­lines' 31-inch pitch in econ­o­my class, "so the ex­tra space at a low­er fare will no doubt be at­trac­tive to trav­ellers cu­ri­ous about a new al­ter­na­tive from Port-of-Spain, fur­ther pres­sur­ing Caribbean as it con­tin­ues to strug­gle," CA­PA said.CAL should dis­miss any fur­ther tie-ups un­til it gains fi­nan­cial foot­ing, the avi­a­tion body fur­ther ad­vised.

The ac­qui­si­tion of Air Ja­maica by Caribbean "can hard­ly be deemed a suc­cess," CA­PA said. "The most re­cent ex­am­ple of the failed ex­e­cu­tion was protest by pi­lots from both car­ri­ers over not re­ceiv­ing in­cen­tive pay­ments owed to them. Against that back­drop re­ports have sur­faced that the gov­ern­ment of the Ba­hamas is in talks with T&T about a pos­si­ble tie-up be­tween Ba­hama­sair and Caribbean Air­lines.

CA­PA said rough­ly four years af­ter the ac­qui­si­tion of Air Ja­maica, the scale cre­at­ed by the two car­ri­ers that should have ush­ered some sta­bil­i­ty in­to the air­line has failed to ma­te­ri­alise, as pre­vi­ous man­age­ment teams at CAL "made il­log­i­cal de­ci­sions about the car­ri­er's net­work–the ser­vice to Lon­don Gatwick is the most glar­ing ex­am­ple."

The avi­a­tion an­a­lysts said while it is not like­ly to oc­cur, "per­haps an out­right sale by the gov­ern­ments con­trol­ling Caribbean Air­lines would be most ben­e­fi­cial for the car­ri­er." It ar­gued that "in the hands of a dif­fer­ent man­age­ment not be­hold­en to the gov­ern­ment" the air­line could take the tough but nec­es­sary de­ci­sions to place it on a path to sta­bil­i­ty.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored