PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad - The most troubling thing about the current fuss about free travel at Caribbean Airlines is how familiar it all is. During the many decades of the airline’s previous incarnation as BWIA, flights were plagued with freeloading and flight status abuses, whimsical efforts at pampering wealthy, powerful people who were perfectly capable of paying for their own first-class tickets to any destination to which the airline formerly known as BWee flew.
This continued to happen despite several interventions by the State and many bold and upstanding statements about a commitment to business principles and profitability.
What finally scuttled any chance that BWIA might have ever had of moving to sustainable profitability was the unofficial erosion of purpose implicit in scheming to arrange free seats on the airline. That inevitably triggered a “get mine” rush for freeness even among staff who fully understood that this ill-considered plundering of the airline’s core product, seats on popular flights, would assure the company’s failure.