Irish Competition For LIAT?

Came across an interesting article in the Irish Independant newspaper, concerning a story that a group of Irish investors may be considering setting up a regional airline in the Caribbean.  It seems that the origin of this story/rumour comes from the difficulties experienced by Digicel executives in moving around the Caribbean. However it was very clear that Mr. O’Brien is not involved.

“It is understood the difficulty experienced by executives at Denis O’Brien’s Digicel, a Caribbean mobile phone company, encouraged Mr Lamont and his colleagues in the idea that a new airline would be viable. However, although one source suggested that Mr O’Brien would be a likely investor were a sound business case to be developed, this was rejected out of hand by his spokesman.”

In the end the article does concede that  “Sources familiar with the market said it was difficult to see how a new regional airline would be viable.” However other sources indicate that the group are investigating types of aircraft for the new airline to use. The article was very vague on almost all points other than Mr. O’Brien’s non-involvement.

Perhaps Mr. O’Brien has been talking to Mr. Stanford 🙂

Marginal