REGIONAL EMERGENCY-PM Skerrit Calls for Governments to Invest in Intra-regional Travel

Prime Minster Roosevelt Skerrit has called for regional heads to invest in air transportation to ease the region’s travel woes.

Speaking during his bi-monthly press conference on Monday, the Dominican leader said the matter of reduced options for air travel was a regional emergency warranting the attention of the region’s leaders.

“Governments must invest in intra-regional travel. Intra-regional travel for so many islands is a public good.

“Dominica is prepared to play our part financially but you absolutely need a construct like LIAT that will be complemented by the private sector in these islands to give you the kind of service that you really need,” the Prime Minister declared.

He said LIAT’s departure from the skies is affecting the islands’ economies “in a dramatic way.”

“I recognized as Prime Minister, the important and unprecedented role that LIAT has played and was playing at the time to intra-regional travel. I do not believe there is any other entity that can be reasonably expected to replace the functions of LIAT in the region,” PM Skerrit argued.

He praised Antigua’s Prime Minister Gaston Browne for his “heroic efforts” to keep the airline afloat.

CARICOM Heads at the Forty-fourth regular meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government held in February in the Bahamas, resolved to work together to solve the issues plaguing intra-regional travel.