end''. Those are two recent headlines. The first applies to the national airline of the Bahamas, the second to Cayman Airways, the Cayman Islands' national airline.

According to the Caymanian Compass, the accumulated defecit of Cayman Airways was 33,701,651 United States dollars at the end of 1991. According to other reports, the Bahamas Government which is right now faced with an accumulated budget defecit of $240 million will have to pump US$35 million into Bahamasair this year and another $16 million during the first half of 1993. This is needed only to keep the national airline in business.

Bahamasair was allocated $4.3 million in the 1992 budget prepared by the government of then-Prime Minister Sir Lynden Pindling but a total of $35 million will actually be needed. The new Prime Minister of the Bahamas Mr.

Hubert Ingraham has warned: "Even with these massive injections of funds, Bahamasair's problems would not be at an end because the airline will continue to lose money and be the major drain on the public purse.'' In the Cayman Islands, the airline picture is not much better. Despite a Cayman Government subsidy of over $3 million US, Cayman Airways made an operating loss of $US2.96 million in the six months of July to December 1991.

In addition to that, there were termination costs of over a half-million US on the leases of two Boeing aircraft and costs of almost $1.4 million associated with an incident in October of last year when an aircraft ran off the end of the Owen Robert Airport in Cayman. In all, Cayman Airways had a net loss of US$4,871,749 for six months and its accumulated defecit was US$32,701,651 at the end of 1991.

It is fair to say that Cayman Airways' performance in 1992 has shown considerable improvement due to restructuring and a strengthened management.

The airline was able to reduce its loss to less than the previous year's figures but still showed a loss of just under US $4 million. It is expected that as long as it has a "reasonable'' Government subsidy, the airline should break even within two years. However, the liabilities of the airline include a bank overdraft of over $6 million US and accounts payable and accrued expenses of over US$12 million.

We record all this for our readers because the Shadow Minister of Tourism, Mr.

David Allen, constantly suggests that Bermuda should have a national airline.

More than that, he suggests that such an airline would solve some of Bermuda's problems, Bermuda's tourism is actually deprived and the Country is suffering because it does not have a national airline.

The truth is that Bermuda's economy has been better run than even that of the United States. Bermuda has sensibly avoided huge debts simply because someone thought an airline would be a nice way to show the flag. How silly Bermuda would be to run itself in debt or put up its taxes for no other reason than to boast that we have our own debt-plagued, money losing airline.

We don't think the public wants that for Bermuda.