BWIA's future hinges on US$1.4m saving plan By Curtis Rampersad, Trinidad Express If national airline BWIA does not get the labour concessions it wants by January 31, the cash-strapped carrier will have to look at cutting jobs again to save money. By the end of the month, BWIA expects to have a money-saving plan in place to trim the mandated US$1.4 million in monthly overheads. But the plan hinges on labour concessions which to date the airline's unions have not fully agreed on. BWIA's corporate communications director Clint Williams confirmed yesterday that if management can't get the labour concessions from the unions, the carrier "will be forced to look at other means of saving money including job losses". Management and the unions are still in negotiations and "the door is still open" to the unions, he said. "We have fought to preserve jobs against an industry backdrop of massive job cuts," Williams stressed. "We have tried to save as many jobs as possible." But with a 2002 half-year loss of US$8 million and industry sources pointing to a similar second half loss, BWIA has to further slash costs to qualify for financial aid from the Government. Last year, the unions agreed to US$130,000 of the US$300,000 in monthly concessions requested by airline management. *************************************************** The owner of Roger's Trinbago Site/TnTisland.com Roj (Roger James) escape email mailto:ejames@escape.ca Trinbago site: www.tntisland.com Carib Brass Ctn site www.tntisland.com/caribbeanbrassconnection/ Steel Expressions www.mts.net/~ejames/se/ Site of the Week: http://www.atlanticlng.com TnT Webdirectory: http://search.co.tt *********************************************************