Sunjet Tristars: BWIA in the 1980/90s

British West Indies Airways, the national airline of Trinidad & Tobago, had entered the 1970s in poor shape, been turned around by a consultancy form only to fall back into bad habits as the decade closed. Nonetheless the new long haul choice, the Tristar 500, was well suited to the long thin European routes that BWIA was flying. Unfortunately the Tristar alone couldn't turn around BWIA's fortunes.

See part 1 for the story of BWIA in the 1970s.

Poor equipment choices and pilot strikes had assisted in a serious decline in service levels so it is perhaps somewhat surprising that instead of sorting out the airline's fundamental problems the government instead bought a new fleet of aircraft! The airline identified the long-range Tristar 500 as its first widebody aircraft in 1978 and government permission was gained for two firm orders and two options. The first aircraft was delivered in January 1980 as 9Y-TGJ 'Flamingo'. She was followed six months later by 9Y-TGN. TGJ's original silver belly seems to have lasted less than a year.

BWIA L-1011-385-500 Tristar 9Y-TGN Gemini Jets 1:400 Scale Model Airliner

The two outstanding options were confirmed in September 1980 and delivered in November 1981 (9Y-THA) and July 1982. The last aircraft kept an American registration and became N3140D. The Tristars directly replaced the 707s which were all sold by January 1983. During the 1980s long haul services expanded to extra European destinations including Frankfurt, Stockholm and Zurich.

BWIA had been forced to takeover the assets of Trinidad & Tobago Air Services (TTAS) in 1980 as the latter failed attempting to make the troubled Tobago air-shuttle service work with its HS-748s. This did not improve the airline's profitability and merely added to its problems. The livery was altered slighty to add 'Trinidad and Tobago Airways' to the existing BWIA International titles.

The short-medium haul fleet consisting of four Douglas DC-9-51s was replaced from 1986 by McDonnell Douglas MD-83s following the successful lease of a Frontier example in 1985. Nine MD-82/83s were acquired in the late 1980s as part of a plan to expand services to connect South America to New York using Port au Spain as a regional hub. The titling was updated in the late 1980s to say 'We Are The Caribbean' and the Tristars were also renamed with TGJ becoming 'Sunjet Trinidad', TGN 'Sunjet Barbados', THA 'Sunjet Antigua' and N3140D 'Sunjet St Lucia'. Unfortunately neither the renaming, regional expansion or long haul routes increased profitability and by the early 1990s the government was interested in privatising the airline.

The appointment of Trinidadian Conrad Aleung (who left his role as general manager of Air Canada's regional airlines) in May 1993 produced a minor turnaround. He cut staff numbers from 2,500 to 2,200 and halved senior management positions. The airline was in such dire straits that it was forced to defer payroll and network capacity was cut by 13%. A first quarter 1994 profit of $800,000 was achieved with a cost reduction of $13 million. Aleong prepared the airline for privatisation focusing on inflight service and relaunching business class on the Tristars.

The airline was partially privatised on February 15, 1995 with an investor group led by Edward Acker (of Air Florida, Pan Am and Atlantic Coast) which took 12%, would sell another 51% and had a 3 year turnaround plan. The government handed over the airline's assets and wrote off $83 million of debt plus underwrote another $60 million of debts during the turnaround period whilst keeping a 15.5% share and gifting 33.5% to employees. Existing options for buying Boeing 757s and 767s were cancelled and instead fleet renewal was to be based around A321s and A340s.

Initially the plan looked like it was a goer as the airline posted a profit in the September 1995 quarterly results of $7.2 million despite the impact of Hurricane Luis. It almost looked like the airline might makea profit for the first time in 55 years but somehow it ended the year making a loss of about $5 million. It also failed to start advertised services to Sao Paulo and Buenos Aires and Acker resigned early in 1996 citing 'personal reasons'. His replacement was also short-lived and the search for a new CEO ended with Gilles Filliatreault. Losses for 1996 totalled $27 million. The A340s were cancelled and the two A321s that were delivered lasted less than a year.

Filliatreault had been CEO of LIAT (hardly renowned itself for profits) and he failed to make a difference being sacked in February 1998, 17 months after he came onboard following the airline posting a $15 million loss. This time another consultancy group took charge, CA International, headed by Conrad Aleung who once again took up residence as President and CEO.

The airline continued to lurch from crisis to crisis despite the introduction of a smart new image in December 1999. The Tristars would continue to ply the reduced long-haul network to London, and even started a new service to Manchester, until January 2003 when they were replaced by the first of a pair of Airbus A340-300s. With no resolution to its fundamental issues the writing was on the wall however and following failed negotiations with staff in 2006 the airline was wound up and replaced by a new airline to be named Caribbean Airlines.

Interestingly 9Y-TGN wasn't broken up and instead was to be preserved. I'm not sure if this was completed but here's thestory as of 2004.

References

1989. Birtles, J. Modern Civil Aircraft 8: Lockheed Tristar. Ian Allan
1994. Daly, K. Sunny Outlook: BWIA. Flight International
1996, February. Chung-Wee, Roger. BWIA loses money and chairman. Concord World Travel
1998, February. New management for BWIA. Stabroek News