COMMENTARY

US Airways and America West merger could benefit the Caribbean

by Adrian Loveridge, a former Director of the Barbados Hotel & Tourism Association and chairman of its Marketing Committee

Tuesday, May 24, 2005

The recently announced merger between US Airways and America West could benefit the Caribbean in more ways than one.

First it takes the immediate and enormous financial pressure off US Airways and simply enables them to remain flying.

US Airways made it part of their recovery plan to extend their presence into the Caribbean because of a number of tempting reasons.

They had the ideal aircraft. 

Planes like the fuel efficient Airbus 319 which could fly over 2,000 miles non-stop, with an economic break even of 60 or more revenue passengers, paying considerably more seat per flown mile than they could get in a crowded and fiercely competitive domestic market.

Secondly, there were Caribbean government agencies willing to support them in terms of marketing dollars to help take out the risk of start-up new routes.

Now perhaps the biggest opportunity presenting the region with an amalgamated US Airways/America West is one sector that has been largely ignored by Caribbean tourism planners, and that is those hundreds of thousands of regular travellers holding frequent flyer miles.

With an expanded network and new hubs at Las Vegas and Phoenix, complementing Charlotte and Philadelphia, America West Airline clients will now be able to use those accumulated miles to reach the Caribbean.

Prior to the merger, the cost of a paid ticket, probably would have deterred the average traveller choosing a Caribbean destination.

But now a unified rewards programme will mean that even those living in the more far-flung joining points in the middle and western United States will be able to travel for the same number of miles as an eastern gateway city.

Hopefully our tourism policymakers will be quickly evaluating exactly how to best capitalise on this enormous market, who already have the accumulated miles to reach us.

Perhaps, the most cost-effective way will be to post attractive land packages on the Dividend Miles website or include a colourful flyer in mileage statement mailings.

Finally, having unsuccessfully courted legacy and emerging airlines to operate non-stops from the American middle-west and Pacific coast for years, this just might be the right time for a new Phoenix- Eastern Caribbean route.

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