Customer: “Now that’s what I call a dead parrot airline. It has ceased to be, it has expired and gone to meet its maker. This is an ex-parrot ex-airline…”
Pet shop clerk: “No it’s not. It’s just resting.”
by Robert
It is now 68 days since REDjet ceased operations.
Ninety percent plus of the staff has moved on. The majority of the signage at Grantley Adams is gone and what remains looks like nothing more than an oversight. Barbados and Trinidad pulled the licenses. They still spool-up the jets once every two weeks, but no serious maintenance is happening. Soon the jets will sit in the Bajan sun deteriorating in the salt air and suffering from that most deadly threat to an aircraft’s health: not flying. REDjet hasn’t updated their website or put out a press release since March. Our accidental Prime Minister, Freundel Stuart, was talking nonsense at the beginning of May saying the Barbados government had not abandoned REDjet: but then we learned the the government hadn’t even requested the airline’s financial statements to that date. Stuart was only shining people on with his comments.
On the weekend a CADRES poll revealed that Barbadians do not want public money funding REDjet. The DLP needed a poll to tell them that? Nobody else did.
We are within six months or less of an election and the ruling DLP is not going to touch the REDjet landmine in this economic climate. Besides, after the results of CADRES’ leadership poll Prime Minister Stuart has a lot more on his mind than trying to bail out Bizzy Williams and his friends over their hobby airline.
REDjet is dead, dead, dead – and those who disagree are more and more sounding like the pet shop clerk in Monty Python’s famous Dead Parrot sketch. How Dad used to roar over that one! He’d probably get just as much of a laugh over Prime Minister Stuart trying to explain to the voters why his government would put our good tax money into REDjet just to nail it back onto the perch.
REDjet is expired. It is an ex-airline. It has ceased to be.
Can we please move on to the coming election and how the DLP lied about Integrity, Transparency and Accountability Legislation – and how Owen Arthur and the Bees are no better?
Barbados Free Press 
R.I.P. RedJet
It was nice knowing you, while you lasted
and I’m happy for those who could take advantage of your lowered air fares.
Maybe now you understand the term Economies-of-Scale
in mini-markets scattered across the seas.
You thought you’d bring American type business to the West Indies
but it didn’t work (see Economies of Scale, above).
Thank you for trying.
Have a nice life…after-life.
It was fumbling, delaying, slow moving Government that killed Red Jet..not a problem of Economies of Scale.
Has Foon seen the CLICO report yet?Or is he still blaming the Nation for publishing it before he got his copy?Exactly how long does it take to read the report anyway? Several weeks?
@yatiniteasy you are soooo correct – had it not been for the delays caused by the Barbados Government Redjet would still be flying. And @ripredjet it was not an American model it was an Irish model which has proven to be the most successful in the world!!! I can only assume you and Robert work for LIAT!! So I suppose the Cadres report also said that Bajans do not want cheap airfares?? Never fear Redjet will be back just not in Barbados!!!!!
Guyana is looking to revive it in July, what reputation will it have left by then? They started arse backwards, they had a launch in Oct. 2010 to pressure Fumble and went wrong with a great idea – sigh!
Who is going to fly in those planes?
Does the DLP repeat history?
Story goes that…
In the days of Sandi….Banks Beer was trying to import something vital to their factory output.
The importation documents had to be approved by the PM
who was Sandiford, back then. Said documents languished on his desk for days then weeks, while Banks Beer champed at the bit waiting for His Excellency to get off the pot and DO Something.
The RedJet launch reminds me of this story..
Adding to that above…said languishing transpired while Banks’ equipment was IN THE PORT, awaiting nothing but the signature of one errant schoolteacher! which made it all the more frustrating, and probably why every banks Beer drinker decided to vote Sandi’s sorry ass OUT when de time came to do so.
Does the dead parrot story apply to Four Seasons….Merricks?
The Barbados government will have to eat some humble pie when the Guyana government get RedJet flying again. Froon is nothing more than an accidental bumbling poppet.
@ ripredjet check out http://www.easyjet.com and http://www.ryanair.com to name just two of the airlines operating on the same business model that RedJet was using if you would like to see two success stories.
It was the direct fault of the Barbados and Trinidad governments and their collective lackies and time wasters that caused the failure of this Barbados business venture. It was clear that someone wanted some money.
Bajans and other Caribbean people are the ultimate losers including those Bajans who invested in the venture. i feel sorry for both parties (the travelling public and the investors).
It is high time that the Barbados government became more positive to getting businesses up and running and to make the various government department remove 99.9% of the archaic regulations and red tape to which they have become accustomed.
As Mr. Errol barrow said many years ago “an army of occupation”.
We are overdue for a change in attitudes and to put the past behind us.
Did you say attitudes?
You’re bang on the money of our Single Biggest National Problem, bar none!
Right, then…
Wot about me free tix for me special ladies who is in de entertainment industry and needs transport to other island paradises? Wot about me special allotment of whiskey & other duty free treats?
Until I gets wot is only fair, you ain’t gonna be takin the Red Birds back into de air!!!
Meet me at de usual spot and we get this worked out. De ladies is ready for a stroll.
RED JET WILL fly again
Anyone who can’t see that is really blind
I booked two seats to Jamaica at easter.. and up to now can’t get a refund …. cant even reach them on the phone.. they just don’t work! …out of service!