The Tribune

• Passenger count to near-double to 800k

• Eyes route, Cuba/Haiti cargo ‘expansion’

• Subsidy cut ‘about 50%’ from COVID-19

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

Bahamasair is targeting an initial $2m annual revenue boost from launching bulk cargo services, it has been revealed, with the number of passengers transported in 2022 set to almost double year-over-year.

Tracy Cooper, the national flag carrier’s managing director, told Tribune Business that passenger numbers have already outstripped last year’s 440,000 total by 61 percent with three weeks - including the high-travel Christmas holiday season and its build-up - remaining in 2022.

Predicting that Bahamasair will move just over 800,000 travellers for the full year, he added that this placed the airline within striking distance of the 940,000 it served during the “bumper” pre-COVID year of 2019.

Confirming that the carrier is seeking to add extra routes in 2023 as its expands its fleet, the Bahamasair chief told this newspaper that its imminent entry into the bulk aviation cargo sector was “a natural flow” given that The Bahamas imports virtually all it consumes. Acknowledging that it perhaps should have entered this market sooner, Mr Cooper said the airline is also seeking to transport cargo onwards from The Bahamas to Cuba and Haiti.

However, while seeking to serve travel demand from Florida airports that it was “unable to properly meet” this summer through the addition of another jet in 2023, he admitted that Bahamasair’s newly-launched route from Raleigh, North Carolina, to Grand Bahama was “not up to expectations” yet and more work is required to build traveller numbers.

Still, asserting that Bahamasair has “a good forecast for the next 24 months”, Mr Cooper said the taxpayer subsidies that keep the national flag carrier in the air have been slashed by 50 percent compared to outlays that peaked at more than $78m during the height of the COVID pandemic. And, while declining to disclose figures, he added that the carrier is “slightly ahead” of target for a financial year that began on July 1.

“We are having, as usual, an uptick this time of the year,” Mr Cooper told Tribune Business of the approaching Christmas season. “We’re not complaining. Right now, suffice to say, we are doing as expected for the Christmas season.

“Every month this year we have surpassed what we did last year. Last year we moved about 440,000 passengers, and this year we’re up to 700,000 and counting already. We’re seeing somewhere around a 61 percent improvement over last year’s numbers with another three weeks of operations to go.

“I’m thinking we’ll be a little over 800,000, and when you compare it to 2019, we moved 940,000. We’re not far off the comparison between pre-COVID and where we’re at now. Just coming from the Out Island Promotion Board’s annual general meeting [on Thursday], and the Bahamas Hotel and Tourism Association’s (BHTA) the following day, and everybody is predicting that 2023 is possibly going to surpass 2019, which was a bumper year.”

The sharp jump in Bahamasair’s passenger count, which matches the rest of the tourism and aviation industries, comes as little surprise given that both sectors were last year still grappling with multiple COVID restrictions that included border entry measures as well as testing that impacted the ease of travel.

Affirming that Bahamasair was “looking forward to 2023 with great anticipation”, Mr Cooper said the tourism and aviation rebound “speaks to the strong branding of The Bahamas’ product”. He added: “We are looking to do some expansion. We’re looking to develop in 2023 and introduce our international cargo component, both from the US to The Bahamas and from The Bahamas to Cuba and Haiti.

“Initially, and like all ideas you go into you have to build it, in 2023 we’re projecting somewhere around a $2m impact on earned revenues. We think it’ll be really strong, the Bahamasair brand, when it comes to moving parcels and stuff of that magnitude, so once we start with that and the public becomes aware of what it is we think we’ll have a lot of buy-in.” The airline has previously indicated it is targeting 10 percent annual growth in these revenues.

Mr Cooper said the national flag carrier was targeting the market for non-hazardous bulk cargo that could be transported in its jet fleet. “We’ve considered it for some time. I guess we should have been doing it for a little bit,” he told Tribune Business. “We just think it’s a natural flow. The Bahamas imports most of its consumable products, and there’s a big demand for stuff going from The Bahamas to Cuba and Haiti. We don’t think we’ll have an issues with it.”

Route expansion is also on Bahamasair’s agenda, although Mr Cooper declined to identify those it was targeting as negotiations are continuing. Prince Storr, the national flag carrier’s deputy managing director, previously said that besides direct service between Georgetown and Fort Lauderdale to service Exuma’s expanding tourism market, the airline is “in the early stages” of exploring the opening of new routes from The Bahamas to Antigua and Barbados.

Bahamasair has ambitions to add one place to its fleet every year between now and 2025, taking its available aircraft from the present eight to 11, with all the new planes set to be leased. Mr Cooper described this, rather than acquiring aircraft outright, as “more palatable post-COVID. There’s been a struggle for capital”.

“There are some things we have in the business plan and we’re executing on that plan,” he added. “We’re bringing on one jet in 2023, and that’s to meet the ever-expanding demand for post-COVID travel. We were not able to properly meet the demand we saw in the summer. That additional plane is our main focus along with the cargo component.

“There was expanded demand on the international side for The Bahamas from Orlando and Fort Lauderdale mainly where we simply did not have sufficient seats to meet that demand. Some of that had to do with American Airlines, Jet Blue scaling back a bit, so overall there was much demand in the market. We weren’t complaining; just disappointed a little bit that we were not able to meet all the opportunities. That has now been addressed.”

Mr Cooper, though, conceded that more work is required to develop Bahamasair’s latest route from Raleigh, North Carolina, to Freeport and onwards to Nassau, which was launched on November 17. “It requires some building, some additional work,” he admitted. “It’s not up to expectations at this time, but we expect to eventually get it to where it needs to be.

“For Christmas it’s not too bad, and that’s because of some specials and so forth, but once we get past Christmas we recognise we’ve got some building work to do on it. That routs is very important for the tourism community in Grand Bahama. That’s why we worked with the Ministry of Tourism in putting that route together because it is there to help with the tourism product in Grand Bahama.”

Bahamasair’s fleet expansion is focusing on the jets segment for the moment, although this could shift to its turbo prop planes “because that side of the business is growing as well”. Still, despite the boost from entering the bulk cargo market and route expansion, the airline will likely continue to inflict losses on Bahamian taxpayers. 

Including the $32m estimate for the current fiscal year, Bahamasair will have required more than $140m in taxpayer subsidies to keep it in the air and ensure its survival over the past three fiscal years from - and including - 2020-2021’s $78m-plus injection. However, Mr Cooper said of the subsidy: “It has been cut down. I think in COVID times, when everything was really depressed, what we’re getting now is about 50 percent of what we got then.

“We’re in 2022-2023 as it is now. Right now, what I’ll tell you - and I won’t tell you actual numbers - is that we are slightly ahead of budget. We are doing better than budget for this year.”