EDITORIAL

A Brave New World For Cayman Airways

Tuesday, July 27, 2004

No one can say Cayman Airways in not trying to turn around the fortunes of the national flag carrier.

Bleeding red ink on its profit and loss statement for the whole of its existence, Cayman Airways has in recent years begun a strategy to boldly go where is has never gone before in hope that it could eventually find the land of profitability. 

Last week’s announcement that Cayman Airways will begin direct flights to Boston in October and that it is striving for routes in Central America by the end of the year represents another in a series of moves that indicate a basic change of strategy for the airline. 

Instead of mainly flying routes to southern gateways in the United States and competing against American airlines in doing so, Cayman Airways is now offering services that others are not, which not only eliminates some of the competition factor, but also opens up broader tourism opportunities to the Cayman Islands. 

In the past two years, Cayman Airways has begun regular non-stop service to Montego Bay, Ft Lauderdale, Cuba and Chicago, all moves that could positively affect tourism here.

The Boston route will once again give the airline a presence in the important US Northeast, where non-stop services can help lure the Americans who, in the fearful and security-conscious post-9/11 world, now prefer flying to be as directly as possible.

But as important as the Chicago and Boston non-stop flights are, the proposed Central American routes might offer long-term possibilities that are even more intriguing,

With a regularly scheduled flight presence in Central America, and a gateway to South America, Cayman Airways could open up a whole new tourism market for the country. 

Though the countries in Central and South America are certainly not as affluent as the United States, they do have a portion of the population who can afford to vacation here, or who might want to utilise the financial services the Cayman Islands offers. 

As Cayman Net News has mentioned many times before in this space, Cayman is far too dependent on US tourism, and as a result, our economy is too closely linked with the cycles of the American economy. 
By expanding its horizons to other parts of the world within reach of its aircraft, Cayman Airways can probe the possibilities of untapped tourism markets for the country. 

Because of the risk of opening these new routes, no other airline would attempt it, but that is indeed one of the roles that our flag carrier should fulfil, especially since the airline is not making money anyway and receives millions of dollars in subsidies from the government. 

In some ways, Cayman Airways has taken on the personality of the Leader of Government Business and Minister of Tourism, Hon McKeeva Bush. Rather than just sitting idle in a troubled state, the airline is trying new, albeit risky, things to change its fortunes. 

Whether one sees it as not going down without a fight, or as trying to turn lemons into lemonade, Cayman Airways appears to have a cohesive plan that not only could help its beleaguered balance sheet, but could also help the country as well.

A Cayman Airways executive recently noted that the landscape for the airline had changed. With its bold moves into a new world, the airline is proving its value to the residents of this country.

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