The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

Revelations about ‘the sense of chaos’ at key Family Island airports are potentially “catastrophic” for the tourism industry, a senior airline executive yesterday saying immediate corrective action was required from the Government.

Captain Randy Butler, Sky Bahamas’ chief executive, described as “damning” the report that identified numerous health, safety and environmental inadequacies at four Family Island airports targeted for private-public partnership (PPP) arrangements.

He added that the findings by ALG Transportation Infrastructure and Logistics should have sparked an emergency Cabinet or ministerial meeting to determine how the Government, as owner of all four airports, should respond.

“I would imagine there’s a Cabinet meeting, or the Minister’s in a meeting, because for these Family Island hotels, this is their bread and butter and how they live,” he told Tribune Business.

“They should be calling on the Prime Minister, the Minister, to action this. Airlines who go in there will be looking at this.”

ALG’s July 21, 2016, report, which was exclusively revealed by Tribune Business, warned that “a sense of chaos” existed at key Family Island airports, which lacked the necessary management policies and structures to deal with environmental and social concerns.

The report, submitted to both the Christie administration and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), found that several airports suffered from “general disorder and lack of cleanliness”, with hazardous and flammable materials not property stored or disposed of.

The airports assessed were the Exuma and North Eleuthera facilities, plus their Abaco and Treasure Cay counterparts.

All four have been identified as airports suitable for public-private partnerships (PPPs) between the Government and private investors, as part of an IDB-assisted project to upgrade the Bahamas’ airport infrastructure and secure tourism’s sustainability.

However, Captain Butler said the ALG findings were likely to act as a deterrent to increased tourism arrivals and airlift, given their nature.

“I think it’ll be catastrophic for the industry,” he added of tourism. “You look at the Family Islands, and airlift is already a challenge. This is critical for airlines in making a decision on whether to expand, and where not to go.

“It’ll be a turn-off for investors. Where are you going? Where’s the plan? Who’s in charge of Family Island development? Who’s paying attention to it?”

Captain Butler conceded that the ALG report’s contents were “likely not surprising” for the Christie administration, something that was confirmed by Glenys Hanna Martin, minister of transport and aviation, yesterday (see article on Page 3B).

She said the Government had itself commissioned the ALG report, and was already acting on its findings and recommendations.

The Government also responded to Tribune Business’s revelations of the ALG report’s contents with an official statement, without actually admitting that this was what prompted its comments (see article on Page 3B).

“The Government, after reading the report, today should be in an emergency meeting because this affects us internationally,” Captain Butler told Tribune Business.

“This report makes everything worse. It’s revealing. We have to do something about it. We have to action it.”

Captain Butler said the Government and Mrs Hanna Martin needed to demonstrate they will “be taking this seriously and address it right now”.

“We have to see the political will demonstrated that they have come to do something for the industry partners and the public,” he told Tribune Business. “This report is damning. It’s a serious thing.”

Overhauling all the Family Island airports has been pegged as an $180 million investment, and the ALG report’s findings indicate there is much work to do.

“The environmental management of the airport of Exuma (GGT or Georgetown) is not adequate,” it said bluntly.

“The terminal spaces are saturated due to the lack of space. Given the absence of a structured environmental and social management system, a certain sense of chaos can be perceived from the general disorder and lack of cleanliness in some of the facilities.”

In particular, the airport’s fire station was described as “obsolete”, with conditions unsuitable for emergency responders due to poor maintenance and inefficient use of space.

“The cluttering of materials inside the fire station means that it is not possible to distinguish between materials and waste,” the ALG report said.

“There is no control over the entry of materials. The expiration date of materials is not taken into account. Flammable and hazardous materials are not distinguishable from other materials that have no direct environmental impact.

In North Eleuthera, the ALG investigators found there was “a large area where all sorts of waste has been dumped, from construction materials to hazardous waste”.

“One of the most common issues of the management of materials and equipment (which does not justify this unorderly and neglected storage) is that airport facility operators are not capable of managing government property,” their report said.

“So that any piece of equipment that is inventoried can be dumped without prior authorisation, which leads to the accumulation of old materials at various points in the airport grounds.”

As for Treasure Cay airport, the ALG report said: “Many different types of waste, both inside and outside the terminal, could be observed. Waste is not selected previously, nor is hazardous waste stored adequately (batteries, deposits with flammable materials... are dumped outdoors).”