Vasant Bharath, Trinidad & Tobago’s Minister of Trade, Industry and Investment, has expressed dissatisfaction over the way in which the merger of Air Jamaica with Caribbean Airlines took place and said that it hasn’t worked out the way it was planned. Bharath recently wrote to Jamaican Transport Minister Dr Omar Davies over the issue.

Media reports quoted Bharath as saying that with the merger of Air Jamaica and Caribbean Airlines it was supposed to have created a Caribbean Airline. Even International Monetary Fund had stipulated that Jamaica would divest itself of Air Jamaica. This also resulted in Government of Trinidad & Tobago and Caribbean Airlines entering into this issue. But, this has failed to work as was intended.

Bharath said that this might also have been due to the intervention of low cost carriers like JetBlue Airways, Westjet Airways, Delta Air Lines and others, which have entered into the Caribbean market and made a strong dent into the traffic on those routes.