Two of this coun­try’s main avi­a­tion unions have re­quest­ed ur­gent talks with Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, af­ter she de­clared that Caribbean Air­lines Lim­it­ed (CAL) has two years to ad­dress its fi­nan­cial is­sues or face po­ten­tial job loss­es.

At a Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress meet­ing in Cou­va last week, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said that none of CAL’s routes have been prof­itable.

“Not one sin­gle route of Caribbean Air­lines is bring­ing a prof­it. But we are spend­ing mil­lions of dol­lars. They have two years max, to sort out the mess. Oth­er­wise, every­one there will have to look for a new job. Your fu­ture is in your hands,” she said.

But now, the Avi­a­tion Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Al­lied Work­ers’ Union (ACAWU), led by pres­i­dent Shawn Joseph, and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Air­line Pi­lots’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTAL­PA), head­ed by pres­i­dent Kirk Ram­paul, have sub­mit­ted sep­a­rate let­ters to the Prime Min­is­ter re­quest­ing meet­ings. The unions said they aim to ad­dress mem­bers’ con­cerns and to clar­i­fy the Gov­ern­ment’s po­si­tion re­gard­ing CAL.

In a joint me­dia state­ment, the unions de­scribed the mat­ter as a top pri­or­i­ty. They said they are fo­cus­ing on job se­cu­ri­ty, work­ers’ rights, and ad­her­ence to na­tion­al reg­u­la­tions. The unions have al­so ad­vised their mem­bers who work at CAL to re­main at­ten­tive and co­or­di­nat­ed.

CAL, the state-owned air­line, has faced fi­nan­cial dif­fi­cul­ties for sev­er­al years de­spite mul­ti­ple re­struc­tur­ing ef­forts. In 2024, the air­line re­port­ed an op­er­at­ing prof­it of US$12.1 mil­lion, rep­re­sent­ing a 51 per cent de­crease from US$24.7 mil­lion in 2023. The de­cline was at­trib­uted to high­er main­te­nance, han­dling, and se­cu­ri­ty costs.

Rev­enue for 2024, how­ev­er, in­creased by 5.2 per cent to US$444.6 mil­lion. Dur­ing the same year, CAL trans­port­ed over two mil­lion pas­sen­gers, in­clud­ing 600,000 on the do­mes­tic air bridge.

The air­line has not pro­duced an au­dit­ed fi­nan­cial state­ment in nine years.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s com­ments high­light­ed that the Gov­ern­ment has set a two-year time­frame for CAL man­age­ment to im­prove the air­line’s fi­nan­cial sit­u­a­tion. How­ev­er, no ad­di­tion­al de­tails re­gard­ing po­ten­tial re­struc­tur­ing or al­ter­na­tive mea­sures were pro­vid­ed.

The unions have not re­ceived a re­sponse from the Prime Min­is­ter re­gard­ing the re­quests for meet­ings.

—Ot­to Car­ring­ton