What does the abbreviation LIAT stand for?

Answer 1

For the Caribbean airline, the name LIAT now (legally) stands for [all upper case letters] LIAT (1974) Limited.

But when LIAT was started back by (now Sir) Frank Delisle in the 1950s - and probably through the year 2000 - it stood for Leeward Islands Air Transport.

The name was legally changed within the last 15 years to just stand for LIAT (1974) Limited.

The airline went bankrupt in 1973 for a domino-effect number of reasons. It was then owned by Courtline, a British pre-packaged travel company which owned the airline, hotels and most associated functions, and because they owned pretty much the entire chain of providers they could sell holidays very cheaply.

About that time the British government passed a law which did not allow prices to be changed once they were paid... and then the oil crisis hit, stranding Courtline with thousands of commitments which were now costing them money to carry out instead of making a small profit each time.

So Courtline went bankrupt in 1973, and LIAT with it. By 1974 a few regional governments decided that their inter-island bus service was too valuable to allow to fall, so they purchased it from the Receivers and it was re-named LIAT (1974) Limited. I do not believe that LIAT ever actually stopped operating between 1973 and 1974.

LIAT is now owned by the Antigua, Barbados and St. Vincent governments, has its Head Office in Antigua, and has a secondary pilot base in Barbados. It operated high-frequency scheduled flights between most islands/countries from Guyana in the south to Puerto Rico in the north.