Monday, March 24 2008

CANADIAN company Bombardier yesterday indicated that it is willing to speak with Caribbean Airlines (CA) again about the acquisition of an executive jet despite the fact that talks with CA to purchase a $400 million executive jet “crashed and burned” on March 18.

The proposed CA executive jet service would have been used by Prime Minister Patrick Manning, government officials and corporate clients.

Contacted yesterday in Montreal, Bombardier media relations officer Danielle Boudreau told Newsday it was “a fair comment” to say that Bombardier maintains an open door policy and remained willing to speak with a particular client even if previous negotiations with that client were unsuccessful.

Boudreau said because of the confidential nature of discussions between Bombardier and its clients, she could not say whether or not the company has spoken with CA following the collapse of their talks last week. Boudreau further indicated she could not provide any information about why the CA-Bombardier talks failed.

On March 18, CA said in a statement it would not proceed with the jet’s acquisition because “it has not proven possible to reach an agreement to the full satisfaction of the parties involved within the defined time frame.”

The Global XRS jet which featured in those talks has since been released by Bombardier for sale to another customer.

At a post-Cabinet news conference at Whitehall on March 6, Works and Transport Minister Colm Imbert said the jet would not be acquired unless Bombardier agreed to the insertion of an anti-corruption clause in the contract.

Imbert told last Thursday’s post-Cabinet news conference that the same clause will be included in any final contract to acquire four fast ferries for the proposed national water-taxi service. Cabinet has approved a US$40 million budget to acquire these new vessels and efforts are now underway to source interim vessels for the service. CA said it would return all of the money advanced to it by the Government for the jet’s acquisition.

The sum has varied from US$65 million to US$54 million in conflicting public statements made by Imbert, Minister in the Ministry of Finance Mariano Browne and CA chairman Arthur Lok Jack.

Browne said the Government would support future efforts by CA to acquire an executive jet. With this country scheduled to host the Fifth Summit of the Americas and the Commonwealth Heads of Government summit next year, Imbert said the Government would be placing an increasing reliance on private jet travel over commercial jet travel.