AIRPORT--Government reportedly will be exploring legal options to dismiss the board of Windward Islands Airways International Winair after the current board members apparently have declined government's request for their resignation.
The board members were asked to resign and "clear the way" for government to implement a new management structure to save the airline which is near bankruptcy.
Voluntary resignation by the board members would have bypassed the intervention of the Corporate Governance Council (CGC). Government would have needed only to seek the advice of the CGC when new board members were to be appointed.
With the current board members declining to resign before their terms are up, government will now have to take the legally stipulated actions to dismiss the board. The first course of action will be to seek the CGC's advice on the dismissals. Government will have to motivate it seeking to dismiss the board members before their terms are up.
To guide government's new plan and structure of Winair, a change management team will be put in place to work in collaboration with a new managing body. Current Winair Managing Director Edwin Hodge has been asked to stay on as Chief Operations Officer. However, the intention is to appoint a Chief Executive Officer with extensive airline experience to serve alongside Hodge, as well as a Chief Financial Officer.
Both Michael Ferrier and Prime Minister (PM) Sarah Wescot-Williams, who also is Winair shareholder representative, had stated that the board members had agreed to resign voluntarily. This now appears not to be the case.
It is understood that board members are questioning why the PM and Ferrier asked them to resign before their terms are up. Government has not given any explanation as to the reasons for its request to the board members to resign.
Ferrier is at the head of a fact-finding team that was appointed by the PM to get a hold of the precarious situation at Winair. This team also includes financial and aviation expert Robert Gibbs, formerly of the Excel Aviation Group that was interested in purchasing Winair, veteran former airline executive with American Airlines Michael Cleaver, and attorney Jeroen Veen.
The report compiled by this team and echoed by the Dutch aviation expert who was dispatched to St. Maarten in October 2010 to study Winair concluded that for Winair to regain operational profitability, the airline must, as a start, go back to its core task of servicing minimal destinations Saba, St. Eustatius and St. Barths, before expanding to new destinations.
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