apr-2017c

90 91 INTERCARIBBEAN AIRWAYS FLYING IN THE HEART OF THE CARIBBEAN AIRWAYS “I started the company by having a love affair, not with the air –with a lady.” So begins the history of inter- Caribbean Airways Ltd., founded in 1991 by Lyndon Gardiner, who, by following his own heart, wound up owning and operating a wide-ranging group of air transport and air services companies in the Turks and Caicos Islands in the heart of the northern Caribbean. “I was working at a bank and I had fallen in love with a lady from the Dominican Republic and I wanted to have the opportunity to go over there and see her,” Gardiner continues. “The scheduled flight left on Friday morning, so I would have to leave work to try and catch that flight. I took a couple of Fridays off and then my boss got upset with me, and com- plained that I was never there on a Friday, so he asked me if there was anything he could do for me. I told him if I had enough money, I would be able to go to Florida and get my pilot’s license and then I’d be able to fly, myself. He went ahead and gave me a loan– about $5,000– and I went to Florida, and in three week’s time, I had my private pilot’s license. “A couple of months