The new LI­AT could start flights with­in weeks, as the air­line, which was es­tab­lished in 2020, re­ceived its first two air­craft. The LI­AT 2020 air­line was formed in part­ner­ship with Air Peace, a pri­vate Niger­ian air­line found­ed in 2013.

The rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Air Peace Caribbean, Haf­sah Ab­sul­salam, said the first or­der of busi­ness is to ac­quire the Air Op­er­a­tors Cer­tifi­cate (AOC) to en­sure the launch.

“With­in weeks we are hop­ing to launch the air­line. We will be hit­ting the road with our mar­ket­ing cam­paign to tell you what our ser­vices are about. Nat­u­ral­ly, the is­lands where we take our demon­stra­tion flights will be the first to be added to our sched­ule. With that in mind we are get­ting our op­er­a­tional readi­ness in place to en­sure us able to be­gin op­er­a­tions,” she said.

The two jet air­craft ar­rived min­utes apart with the new com­pa­ny lo­go, LI­AT 20, and were greet­ed with a wa­ter can­non salute pro­vid­ed by the Fire De­part­ment along with cheers from those gath­ered. Speak­ing last week at the cer­e­mo­ny in the cap­i­tal of An­tigua for the ar­rival of two E-145 jet air­crafts that will form part of the new An­tigua-based air­line, LI­AT 2020 Ltd, An­tigua and Bar­bu­da Prime Min­is­ter Gas­ton Browne told the cer­e­mo­ny that it was in 2020 dur­ing the dark days of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, that his gov­ern­ment had the vi­sion to reg­is­ter the com­pa­ny LI­AT 2020.

“No one would have ex­pect­ed that a small is­land state, one of the most vul­ner­a­ble coun­tries that had en­dured a most dev­as­tat­ing im­pact from COVID-19 in 2020, would have the courage to plan were not on board for the new ride. He said the re­gion­al lead­ers want­ed to bury LI­AT (1974) Ltd, even as he saw the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic pro­vid­ing an op­por­tu­ni­ty to  “right-size” the air­line.

The new air­line will re­place LI­AT (1974) Ltd, which was first es­tab­lished in Montser­rat in 1956 but fold­ed in Jan­u­ary fol­low­ing in­creased debt and the eco­nom­ic im­pact of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

Ear­li­er this year Browne had said that Air Peace would be putting in close to US$65 mil­lion, while the gov­ern­ment is in­vest­ing US$20 mil­lion.

Prime Min­is­ter Browne told the cer­e­mo­ny that St. John’s in­vest­ment could be high­er.

“At the time if you had asked me where we would have got­ten US$20 mil­lion as a na­tion to in­vest in the es­tab­lish­ment of LI­AT 2020, I don’t be­lieve I would have had a pre­cise an­swer, I prob­a­bly would have said to you at the time God will pro­vide.

“But to­day, we are in a po­si­tion in which the gov­ern­ment of An­tigua and Bar­bu­da has al­ready placed US$12.1 mil­lion in es­crow for the pur­chase of three ATRs and we will al­so make avail­able an­oth­er US$10 mil­lion to re­pair the three air­craft to en­sure that they are air wor­thy.

“So in essence, we are com­mit­ted to spend­ing in ex­cess of US$20 mil­lion to make LI­AT 2020 a re­sound­ing suc­cess,” Browne told the cer­e­mo­ny. Two more air­craft will ar­rive over the com­ing months, to in­clude a 120-seater jet and the new air­line has al­ready com­plet­ed de­mo flights un­der the East­ern Caribbean Civ­il Avi­a­tion Au­thor­i­ty, while await­ing its AOC by this week.

Browne said his ad­min­is­tra­tion is pre­pared to ne­go­ti­ate di­rect­ly with the for­mer em­ploy­ees of the re­gion­al air­line, LI­AT (1974) Lim­it­ed that went bank­rupt ear­li­er this year.

The An­tigua and Bar­bu­da Work­ers Union (AB­WU) has been call­ing on the gov­ern­ment, which had been a ma­jor share­hold­er in the air­line, to ne­go­ti­ate an am­i­ca­ble set­tle­ment, but the gov­ern­ment has ac­cused the union of not want­i­ng to ne­go­ti­ate in good faith. Browne said that the door re­mains open for di­rect ne­go­ti­a­tions with the work­ers re­gard­ing the sev­er­ance pay­ments.

The gov­ern­ment had orig­i­nal­ly of­fered a 50 per cent com­pas­sion pay­ment in cash and bonds to the for­mer em­ploy­ees that Browne said amounts to EC$110 mil­lion (One EC dol­lar=US$0.37 cents).  The AB­WU had said in the past that it would con­tin­ue to seek the 100 per cent sev­er­ance pay­ment to the for­mer air­line em­ploy­ees.

“We know the is­sue of sev­er­ance re­mains an is­sue and where­as my ad­min­is­tra­tion has no le­gal oblig­a­tion to pay sev­er­ance, I say to the dis­placed work­ers of LI­AT and even those who are still em­ployed with LI­AT that my ad­min­is­tra­tion is com­mit­ted to cov­er­ing the 32 per cent,…rep­re­sent­ing the share­hold­ing my gov­ern­ment had in LI­AT at the time.”

Apart from An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, the oth­er share­hold­ers were Bar­ba­dos, Do­mini­ca and St Vin­cent and the Grenadines. Most of these is­lands have reached agree­ment with their for­mer LI­AT work­ers on sev­er­ance pay­ments.

Browne, who at­tend­ed the XXI­II AL­BA-TCP Sum­mit in Venezuela, said that “where­as the union has been an im­ped­i­ment, my ad­min­is­tra­tion is now pre­pared to ne­go­ti­ate di­rect­ly with the LI­AT staff and to put a mech­a­nism in place to make sure that 32 per cent is paid to you.

“How­ev­er, it will re­quire the ma­tu­ri­ty of the staff to look be­yond the par­ti­san pol­i­tics of the union and to ne­go­ti­ate di­rect­ly with our gov­ern­ment so that we can make those funds avail­able to you in what­ev­er com­bi­na­tion, cash, bonds and land.

“So I re­it­er­ate that the of­fer still stands and I en­cour­age ex­ist­ing staff and for­mer staff of LI­AT to take up the of­fer,” Browne said.

Re­spond­ing lat­er last week to Prime Min­is­ter Brown’s com­ments, the AB­WU ac­cused Prime Min­is­ter Browne of con­tin­u­ing “to bul­ly”  the for­mer em­ploy­ees of the re­gion­al air­line, LI­AT (1974) Lim­it­ed that went bank­rupt ear­li­er this year.

In a state­ment, the AB­WU said  it has tak­en note of Prime Min­is­ter Browne’s most re­cent state­ments re­gard­ing the LI­AT 1974 sev­er­ance mat­ter and that he “con­tin­ues his at­tempts to un­der­mine the union’s role and dis­re­gard the work­ers’ rights to rep­re­sen­ta­tion and col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing.

“This pro­tract­ed sev­er­ance bat­tle waged against the work­ers by the Prime Min­is­ter has ex­posed the fun­da­men­tal is­sue at play: that the Prime Min­is­ter does not ac­cept that sev­er­ance is a fun­da­men­tal right for all work­ers and that work­ers and their rep­re­sen­ta­tives must have a say in de­ter­min­ing a rea­son­able set­tle­ment.”

Fur­ther, the union said that the mat­ter “is not a po­lit­i­cal is­sue as the Prime Min­is­ter has tried to por­tray it to the work­ers and the pub­lic. Our man­date as a union is to pro­tect and de­fend the rights of our mem­bers ir­re­spec­tive of which po­lit­i­cal par­ty forms the Gov­ern­ment. There is no doubt that the Prime Min­is­ter un­der­stands this very well, but in the ab­sence of any rea­son­able ar­gu­ment as to why the work­ers’ sev­er­ance is not a pri­or­i­ty for his gov­ern­ment, he has no choice but to de­flect and at­tempt to re­duce this mat­ter to a po­lit­i­cal squab­ble.”

“We re­mind the Prime Min­is­ter that ILO con­ven­tion No 98 of 1949 as­serts and pro­tects the work­ers’ Right to Or­gan­ise and to Col­lec­tive Bar­gain­ing,” the AB­WU said, adding that Prime Min­is­ter Browne “con­tin­ues to bul­ly the work­ers of LI­AT in­to ac­cept­ing a sig­nif­i­cant­ly re­duced of­fer of 32 per cent of sev­er­ance down from 50 per cent.

“Where is the rea­son­able­ness in this of­fer? Since nei­ther the gov­ern­ment nor the Court Ap­point­ed Ad­min­is­tra­tor was will­ing to en­ter­tain any dis­cus­sions with the union, it is no sur­prise that they have ar­rived at such a ridicu­lous and in­sult­ing pro­pos­al.

“It fur­ther baf­fles the mind to think that the Prime Min­is­ter be­lieves that he could some­how dupe the work­ers in­to ac­cept­ing this of­fer by “ne­go­ti­at­ing di­rect­ly” with them.

What the Prime Min­is­ter fails to recog­nise is that these very work­ers with whom he wish­es to “ne­go­ti­ate di­rect­ly” are them­selves the union.

“The An­tigua and Bar­bu­da Work­ers’ Union is not an en­ti­ty that is sep­a­rate and apart from the work­ers. Our voice is in fact the voice of the work­ers; the po­si­tion we ar­tic­u­late is the po­si­tion of the work­ers: that they have a right to 100 per cent sev­er­ance or a re­duced set­tle­ment that is mu­tu­al­ly agreed up­on. CMC