By Caribbean News Now contributor
BASSETERRE, St Kitts – Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne said previously that LIAT pilots were on board with the plan to restructure the regional airline to make it a more viable entity financially. This is now a reality, allowing the much-needed restructuring of the company can proceed, albeit the pay cut is less than the ten percent recommended by the airline’s shareholder governments.
This decision by LIAT pilots is geared to help the regional airline overcome its financial difficulties in addition to the financial assistance of regional government for emergency funding of US$5.4 million.
Browne welcomed the agreement in principle to salary cuts, and that good sense prevailed among the pilot’s association, trade union representatives in 15 destinations.
Browne previously explained that “We (shareholder governments) said that even though estimates were around ten percent, we agreed that even if it was five percent something had to be done to reduce the staff cost. This is one of the major costs, with the understanding too that we could introduce a profit sharing element in which they could share in the future profits, and that will mitigate hopefully against any loss that they would have had in terms of the salaries and wages, so they recover it at the bottom end.”
