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View Full Version : Barbados LCC Red-Jet goes to the grave


SpeedyG
17th Mar 2012, 11:13
This taken from Caribbean Regional Airline News pages

The shareholders and staff of REDjet wish to sincerely thank all our passengers and supporters for enabling our airline to achieve the tremendous feat of breaking the high fare experience of many Caribbean passengers, while increasing regional travel numbers for the first time in decades.

We at REDjet set out to deliver the Caribbean’s first affordable air service and we have successfully launched a small number of routes that have in their performance, demonstrated the necessity and popularity for a low fares service in the region.

Our aircraft and our dedicated staff are performing extremely well and we are willing and able to continue to provide affordable transport across the Caribbean and beyond but we cannot.

Unlike the heavily subsidised airlines that serve the region, REDjet does not receive any assistance. As indicated, REDjet is hopeful that we will be given a small part of the State assistance others receive, as it will allow us to get our recently approved and exciting new routes established and profitable. Once this happens, our shareholders and staff will do their utmost to see that there is no return to high fares and business as usual.

We have seen other carriers drastically cut their fares in an effort to shut down REDjet and return to high fares and business as usual with no regard to the negative impact on travellers. Unlike us, they do not have to be profitable to stay in business.

In spite of their subsidised efforts, our passenger numbers have continued to rise because you, our patrons, enjoy our clean, comfortable and well maintained aircraft as well as our excellent service delivered at affordable ticket prices.

REDjet has no alternative but to suspend flights from 23:59pm on 16th March until further notice. All passengers booked on any REDjet flight from Saturday should contact the call centre 24 hours before scheduled departure time for an update on their flight status.

Affected passengers will be offered refunds or the option to travel with REDjet upon commencement of services.

Our Refund Procedure can take up to 3 weeks and is outlined below:

Refund Procedure:

Complete a refund request posted on our website and email to [email protected].

Alternatively submit your refund request with passenger names and booking reference numbers to: REDjet, P.O. Box 6072AP, Barbados.

Further announcements regarding services will be made on Monday 19th March. All tickets for future travel remain valid.

REDjet sincerely apologises for the disruption and distress this temporary cessation of flights will cause and looks forward to serving you in the future.

Curry Goat
17th Mar 2012, 11:44
Those that did not see this coming have to be blind. Nevertheless, another sad day as many families have lost their source of income.

sea
17th Mar 2012, 15:21
I guess the know it all don't listen to the local's , style of management does not work.
Expensive lesson.

frogone
17th Mar 2012, 19:55
What style of management was that?

Loerie
17th Mar 2012, 20:10
There was some print in some Newspapers (may have been in Trinidad) that RedJet were having some difficulties with the authorities in Barbados regarding routes.
I would think that Caribbean Airlines are somewhat relieved.
Last time I got e-mail from RedJet their fares were really reasonable and one would think that they required lots of volume to stay afloat or in the air or whatever.
I sincerely hope that they get going again---from what I read it looks like a tempoary closure until they can find some funding?
Airfares in the Caribbean are ridiculously high and force West Indians and all others living in the region to curtail or cancel any idea of visiting family or friends on neighboring Islands and on some routes there is pretty-much no choice at all.....Seems that as soon as something gets going well down here it get batted out of the air or whatever medium its operating in.
They have been a breath of fresh air and even sadder is the fact that so many will now be out of work,hopefully only temporarily,until they can get going again........and the economies are not exactly booming in de Islands...work is scarce.

sea
17th Mar 2012, 20:56
Obviously the wrong type of management.
From day one they crossed swords with the Barbados civil aviation authority.
Then never could understand why so many crew were trained and left soon after getting current on the MD's.
Funny thing was that i knew some pilots who were rated and had alot of MD time that did not get thru there interview.
All in all a sad event

SpeedyG
18th Mar 2012, 17:12
Well I met those fine gentlemen in the CivAv Department not very long ago and sad to say that I could see anything positive coming from that country - They are a bunch of (should be retirees) with limited and very blinkered approach - No one will survive in that enviornment.

Also heard Executive Air (the piston charter company) was closing too - so BGI will have nothing on the Commercial Registry.

Take a look at Kyffin Simpson - beautiful hanger and operation and all N-REG!!!!!!!!

NightWolf
19th Mar 2012, 05:56
The bottom line is simple; people in the Caribbean are not travelling enough through out the region and intra-regional cargo is limited. The Caribbean is very far from the recession recovery. Despite the new routes and the fares might be low, it is still costly to take a vacation in the region (accommodation, food, spending money etc.) and people are watching their pockets in these times or prefer to travel up north (US, CAN and UK). I personally have travelled on the RD, BW and LI recently and the loads were very light at that time in the winter season. No matter the airline or aircraft if you don't have enough payload it becomes a scenic flight.

NightWolf

gerpols
26th Mar 2012, 01:35
Just so you all know:RedJet is looking for a Chief Pilot on: Latestpilotjobs.com !

Fly Safe

ipanema
26th Mar 2012, 02:03
Full list of articles on REDjet on the CRANe here...
CRANe for the Caribbean (http://www.craneforum.org/viewforum.php?f=301)

REDjet started out taking advice from the then-DCA when they received their AOC (Congratulations, you can fly anywhere in the Caribbean now! No more paperwork is required!) and did not seek a second opinion. The advice was stupid - and incorrect - and they learned their lesson with Trinidad's arrogant stand against "intruders" when they announced Trinidad as a destination without even applying for landing rights.. that cost them over two months sitting on the ground.

REDjet's LCC model was workable and they were apprently flying full, but that first two months came back to haunt them and they seem to have run out of money now.

The true position now seems to be that REDjet is looking for subsidy from Barbados government - and other regional governments - and are holding their operations at a standstill as a bargaining chip. REDjet has NOT actually folded, is just marking time - a skeleton staff needed to maintain the Certificate is still employed.

It is unlikely that they will find such subsidy from Barbados, but at least one other regional country has said they will consider it.

A major factor in the problems of REDjet is that (compliments of the US FAA hobbling US airline competitors) Barbados does not have Cat One, and REDjet therefore is unable to fly to the USA.

They have been operating intra-regional routes, which ran full, and the Barbados government appears to be making decisions by not making decisions. In translated legalese that is a matter of TORT - they did nothing, therefore they are not liable for any consequences.

The Barbados Civil Aviation Department has been in a shambles for decades, and with the continued same-old same-old nothing is likely to change with either their screw-ups or the Cat One situation.

Sayonara, REDjet. Sorry to see you go, but it seems that the sky-spirits are not wafting the aromas in your favour.

NightWolf
31st Mar 2012, 04:20
Wings clipped -- NationNews Barbados -- Local, Regional and International News -- nationnews.com (http://www.nationnews.com/articles/view/wings-clipped/)

THE LIKELIHOOD of low-cost carrier REDjet taking to the skies again anytime soon was dealt a further blow yesterday. Exactly two weeks after suspending flights to its nine destinations the airline had its licence revoked by neighbouring Trinidad and Tobago, who said it was following Barbados’ lead in doing so.


Details of Barbados’ action were revealed in a brief statement by the Trinidad and Tobago Civil Aviation Authority (TTCAA) which said it had “no option” but revoke REDjet’s licence effective yesterday because the airline no longer had a “valid” air operator’s certificate from Barbados, where the fledgling airline is based.


The Trinidadian regulator said its director general Ramesh Lutchmedial had written to Ian Burns, the airline’s chairman and chief executive officer, informing him “that the authority was left with no option but to revoke the licence, since the Barbados Civil Aviation Department (BCAD) by letter dated 20th March, 2012 had advised REDjet that they were suspending the Air Operators Certificate (AOC) issued to REDjet Ltd”.

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So sorry for the lost jobs hope that there might be something better in the future :sad: