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Fa­mous for its short, maxi-taxi style hops be­tween Caribbean is­lands, LI­AT (1974) was in many ways the back­bone of re­gion­al trav­el for decades. But on Jan­u­ary 24, 2024, LI­AT (1974) ceased op­er­a­tions, des­tined to be for­ev­er re­mem­bered as the “Leave Is­land Any Time” air­line.

Fast for­ward to Au­gust 6, 2024, and a new air­line would take to the skies. LI­AT20, a com­plete­ly new en­ti­ty with new man­age­ment, was on a mis­sion: con­nect the North­ern and South­ern Caribbean. Its ex­pan­sion was ag­gres­sive, the man­age­ment team seek­ing to re­claim some of the old LI­AT (1974) routes be­fore oth­ers could es­tab­lish them­selves in the var­i­ous mar­kets.

By De­cem­ber 2024, LI­AT20’s in­au­gur­al flight to Port-of-Spain was on the ground, the 12th des­ti­na­tion in the air­line’s net­work. Kingston, Ja­maica, would soon fol­low, along with talks of link­ing Be­lize, Pana­ma, Colom­bia, and Suri­name.