Finance Minister Colm Imbert has announced that state-owned Caribbean Airlines Ltd (CAL) plans to lease 12 new passenger aircraft to deal with increasing demand.
n his 2024 Budget presentation , Imbert said following the exit of LIAT, the Caribbean has been exhibiting strong air transport demand.
“Additionally, international visitors are on the rise,” he said.
He said in July 2021, since this country reopened its international borders, international visitors have been increasing, with arrivals reaching 226,483 in 2022, revitalising the tourism sector. “This buoyant trend continued into 2023, with visitor arrivals for January-July 2023 recording 182,508.”
With that in mind, the minister said as markets progressively recover, Caribbean Airlines aims to utilise its assets effectively and establish a foundation for network growth.
“The airline thus intends to expand its fleet to meet this growing demand through the lease of four additional ATRs and three additional B 737-8s, bringing the fleet size to a pre-pandemic level. CAL also plans to lease five Embraer E-175 regional jets to service the intra-regional demand and to establish bases and hubs across the region to promote efficiency and cost-reducing measures,” he revealed.
In April of this year, CAL’s American law firm, Condon & Forsyth LLP, applied to the US Department of Transportation “to operate to the full extent authorised by the Air Transport Agreement between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the Republic of T&T”.
In an operational forecast, CAL made specific reference to Puerto Rico and St Thomas in the US Virgin Islands as new routes.
The airline projected rapid growth for these new US destinations.
An operational forecast in the application projected CAL transporting 5,339 passengers to and from Puerto Rico and earning US$694,228 in revenue in 2023 with the airline expecting the Puerto Rico route to quadruple in 2024 with 21,356 passengers and revenues of US$2,776,280.
Passenger travel aside, Imbert also disclosed that CAL is pursuing cargo operations as an essential revenue source and is leasing 2 ATRs and 2 B 737-800s aircraft to grow and expand its cargo services across the region.
In 2019, CAL unveiled a new cargo loyalty programme and customers enrolled in the programme can earn miles every time they ship with CAL’s cargo services.
