A row for money is brewing between the Leeward Islands Airline Pilots Association (LIALPA) and LIAT’s management after the company failed to meet its second instalment of retroactive pay to the pilots.
The company is proposing to halt all further retroactive pay scheduled for 2017 until January 2018.
According to a Consent Order outlining the payment agreed between the parties on June 10 this year, the second instalment was due September 29.
The pilots’ association, through its lawyer Justin Simon Q.C., was notified on September 28 that the airline could not make the payment due to the impact of hurricanes Irma and Maria, which devastated key routes such as Dominica, San Juan, St. Maarten and Tortola between September 5 and September 19.
The pilots’ association has rejected this saying that LIAT would have already budgeted the September payment on or before the beginning of the month and instructions should have been sent to the bank on or before September 27, 2017.
It added that for LIAT “to seek relief at the eleventh hour demonstrates the company’s lack of respect to the pilot body.”
The association said the pilots, like the airline, suffered financially due to the same storm and they too have needs which would require the money they were expecting.
LIALPA said, “The association’s members have a legitimate expectation that they would have received their monies on September 29, 2017, especially since pilots incurred unexpected expenses associated with the two hurricanes”.
The association added that this particularly pertains to the pilots who are from Dominica “who are now in dire need of [the money] to send relief for their families.
