BWIA shareholders nervous By NADINE HOSEIN Industrial action by a few misguided employees inflicted serious financial damage and worsened an already bad situation, said Conrad Aleong, CEO of BWIA in a letter to the airline's workers, yesterday. "The fact is that BWIA is now on a slippery slope. The revenue loss from cancellations and delays is estimated to be US$2.5 million. In addition, this disrupted our customers, placed heavier work burdens on you and caused us to transfer money to other carriers who accepted our passengers," said Aleong. The airline was forced to ask the Barbados government for financial assistance to continue to carry out the Manchester route, a recent addition to its list of destinations. The airline also asked the Barbados government for financial support to combat the events of September 11, but this is still under review, said Aleong in an interview on Tuesday. In his letter to his employees, Aleong posed the question: What do we do next? "How do we find a way forward to continue to pay salaries, fuel, aircraft leases and other suppliers bills? We have to face the reality that we are at virtually the same place, on the brink, as we were in 1998," said Aleong. Aleong also said employees will be asked to choose what they want to sacrifice to save the airline and their jobs through voluntary pay cuts. "It may be through change in work and rest rules, vacation reduction or other means or combinations. But sacrifice we must!" said Aleong. Don Mullings, Investment Manager for Borse Securities said they have had a few calls from seriously concerned shareholders of BWIA. He also said there will be a loss of confidence in the company by shareholders because of the threat by the company's chairman Lawrence Duprey, to pull out. "This is a very serious situation and shareholders need some indication of when it will be resolved and how," said Mullings. The airline's share price remains unchanged at $2.75 at the close of trading yesterday. Robert Myers, a Broker with CMMB said investors will have a hard time trying to sell their shares right now because there are absolutely no buyers on the market. However, he added the brokers have not received any calls of concern from the shareholders of the airline. The owner of Roger's Trinbago Site: Roj (Roger James) *************************************************** escape email mailto:ejames@escape.ca Trinbago site: http://www.tntisland.com CBC Website http://www.tntisland.com/caribbeanbrassconnection/ The Trinbago Site of the Week: (ReadyMix) http://www.readymix.co.tt/ (ReadyMix Cement Ltd) courtesy of Roj Trinbago Website & TnT Web Directory Roj's Trinbago Website: http://www.tntisland.com TnT Web Directory: http://search.co.tt *********************************************************