The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

SKY Bahamas CEO Randy Butler said that his company’s third party maintenance hangar could generate $12-$17 million in the long term, telling Tribune Business that the facility would be ‘like none other’.

Mr Butler said the company was targeting a new stream of revenue by offering maintenance to local as well as international carriers.

“This is going to be a business. I think this is really going to do it for us. This is not only going to be a revenue generator but my goal is to also help people. We are hoping to partner with the government to do a type of maintenance school where we will have six or eight young men or women who will come on with some basic requirements and some folks will come in to do different courses with them. At the end of two years they would be able to sit their US and power plant licence which will make them aircraft technicians,” said Butler.

Mr Butler added: “Most companies that have big airplanes have to bring the expertise in from abroad. What this will do is have people providing training while they are working on our airplanes.”

Mr Butler said that it was hoped that the $1.6 million facility would help to inspire young Bahamians to pursue a career in the aviation sector.

“If you look at what is happening in the education system as a whole I think a part of it is a lack of motivation or purpose,” Butler said.

Mr Butler said: “It’s going to be a maintenance facility here in the Bahamas that’s going to be like none other. Currently in Nassau and Freeport there are no approved maintenance facilities to deal with heavy equipment or big aircraft, with the exception that companies have the approval to work on their own craft. We hope that this will be a facility that will get the kinds of people to work on other aircraft which will bring not only more revenue to our company but to the treasury. We will be able to hire more people and get aircraft parts,” said Butler.

“In their first year for us in terms of doing other business we had looked at it to generate somewhere between $3-$4 million, long term we’re thinking $12-$17 million a year. The good thing about this is it’s labour intensive. Right now we have about 15 people working in our maintenance section, we’re looking at a complement of 30 in various areas. My plan is to talk to the government about the benefits of this and see if they would like to come on-board. We would be glad to partner with them and start this programme as early as the 9th and 10th grade in school. This could be the type of thing where persons are staring at $28,000 a year depending on experience,” said Butler.