CARICOM | Shipping Lifeline in a Transportation Desert: UAL Tackles Caribbean's Connectivity Crisis

MONTEGO BAY, Jamaica August 27, 2025 -For decades, the Caribbean has watched helplessly as its transportation arteries have withered—airlines abandoning routes, shipping lines retreating to more profitable waters, leaving island nations increasingly isolated from each other despite sharing histories, cultures, and economic destinies.

Into this connectivity void steps UAL's new Caribbean Shuttle, a modest 387-TEU vessel that exposes just how desperate the region's transportation situation has become.

When a single cargo ship making a simple three-port loop between Trinidad & Tobago, Guyana, and Suriname generates headlines, it reveals the stark reality: the Caribbean has been abandoned by the global transportation industry.

UAL's mv UAL Transporter, with its shallow 5-meter draft and 9-day rotation, isn't just launching a new service—it's throwing a lifeline to a region where basic connectivity has become a luxury rather than a given.

The fanfare surrounding this announcement should shame every major shipping line and airline that has systematically dismantled Caribbean connectivity while chasing profits elsewhere.

The numbers tell a brutal story. Regional airline LIAT, once the backbone of inter-Caribbean travel, collapsed into administration in 2020, stranding thousands of passengers and severing crucial links between islands.

Caribbean Airlines, despite attempts to fill the void, operates a fraction of the routes that once knitted the region together. Meanwhile, major shipping conglomerates have systematically abandoned Caribbean routes, deeming them insufficiently profitable compared to Asian and European corridors.

The result? A 15-nation CARICOM bloc that can barely move goods between its own members. Jamaican manufacturers struggle to export to Barbados. Trinidadian businesses find it easier to ship to Miami than to Georgetown.

The dream of a Caribbean Single Market and Economy—trumpeted by politicians for decades—has withered on the dock, literally unable to get off the ground.

Consider this absurdity: rice from Guyana, destined for Trinidad's tables just 450 nautical miles away, often travels via Miami or New York, adding weeks to transit times and thousands of dollars in costs.

The Guyana Rice Development Board's figures show 30,000 metric tons exported to Trinidad in 2023—a trade flow that should be seamless but instead navigates a labyrinthine system of transshipments and delays. This isn't market failure; it's market abandonment of an entire region deemed too small, too scattered, and too unprofitable to serve properly.

UAL's solution is both admirable and damning—admirable for addressing a genuine need, damning for what it reveals about the scale of neglect. The mv UAL Transporter's specifications read like a blueprint for Caribbean desperation: shallow draft to reach river ports that major carriers won't touch, multipurpose capability because the region can't afford specialized services, and a modest 387-TEU capacity that major shipping lines would consider laughably small.

"Traders and forwarders in these markets have long asked for a fixed, reliable short-sea option," says UAL's Martijn Hordijk, with understated diplomacy that barely conceals the industry's systematic failure to provide basic connectivity. The fact that this "ask" went unanswered for years speaks volumes about Caribbean priorities in global shipping boardrooms.

UAL's 9-day rotation linking Point Lisas, Georgetown, and Paramaribo targets a trade corridor that should have been served reliably decades ago. Trinidad's industrial hub producing petrochemicals and consumer goods, Guyana's oil-boom economy demanding infrastructure materials, Suriname's agricultural and mining exports—this isn't exotic trade requiring specialized knowledge.

It's basic regional commerce that major carriers abandoned because Caribbean routes don't generate the volume or margins of transpacific giants. The Dutch company's willingness to serve this route exposes a harsh truth: European mid-size operators now show more commitment to Caribbean integration than the region's own transportation infrastructure.

UAL's Caribbean Shuttle shouldn't be news—it should be routine. The fact that a single vessel serving three ports generates regional attention exposes the transportation poverty that has crippled Caribbean development for decades.

While Asian economies built prosperity on seamless connectivity, Caribbean nations have been forced to accept isolation as inevitable.

The service's success or failure will send ripples across the region. If UAL proves that Caribbean routes can be profitable with right-sized vessels and realistic expectations, it challenges every major carrier's excuse for abandonment.

More critically, it could inspire similar services linking other forgotten corridors—Jamaica to Haiti, Barbados to St. Vincent, the Eastern Caribbean's scattered pearls.

But one ship cannot solve systemic neglect. The Caribbean needs a transportation revolution, not charity cases. Regional governments must stop begging global giants for scraps and start building indigenous capacity.

UAL's shuttle proves demand exists; now the question is whether Caribbean leaders will seize this moment to reclaim their region's connectivity.

The mv UAL Transporter may carry containers and cars, but its real cargo is hope for a region that refuses to remain stranded.

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