The cash-strapped regional airline, LIAT, last Monday resumed its commercial schedule with flights operating to a limited number of destinations.
Antigua-based LIAT, to which an administrator has been appointed, said there will be flights five days a week to seven destinations across its network.
The destinations are Antigua, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, St Lucia, St Kitts, and St Vincent. LIAT said that the limited schedule of flights will return connectivity to destinations which were affected by the airline’s suspension of commercial services in March due to financial problems and the coronavirus pandemic that forced many Caribbean countries to close their borders.
The first resumed flight left Antigua for Barbados at 9am and Minister of Foreign Affairs EP Chet Greene said the resumption of flights “is more than an Antigua success, but a regional success”.
Prior to its collapse, LIAT, which owes creditors an estimated EC$100 million (KY$31m), flew to 21 destinations, operating an average of 112 daily flights within a complex network combining profitable and uneconomic routes.
LIAT, whose former major shareholders were the governments of Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica and St Vincent and the Grenadines, said it will announce the addition of other destinations to the schedule soon.
The airline, which said it has completed all the training and regulatory requirements for the territories, also indicated that several new procedures have been implemented to ensure the safety of staff and passengers as well as reduce the risk of transmission of the coronavirus.
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