The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

A Bahamian airline operator yesterday hailed the Government for saving him $100,000 in annual payments to US regulators, but warned it to rapidly proceed with taking back control of all this nation’s air space.

Captain Randy Butler, Sky Bahamas’ president and chief executive, told Tribune Business that the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) 64-year control of Bahamian air space above 6,000 feet had deprived this nation’s aviation industry of much-needed revenue.

Suggesting it was ironic that the Government had chosen to announce the Bahamian carrier fee ‘exemption’ within 24 hours of Majority Rule Day celebrations, Mr Butler called on the Christie administration to get creative in negotiations with the US.

He argued that it should seek to gain a portion of the fees collected by the FAA, arguing that they would provide a financing source for the planned $180 million Family Island airport upgrades and reduce the potential Bahamian taxpayer burden.

Pointing to the aviation industry’s cash-starved infrastructure, Mr Butler revealed that Sky Bahamas had been paying overtime to Exuma’s air traffic controllers to facilitate night flights from Nassau into the destination.

These payments, he added, are the Government’s responsibility, but the airline stepped into the gap after the overtime issue resulted in one of its Exuma flights being refused permission to land.

“For me, it’s over $100,000 in savings,” Mr Butler told Tribune Business of the Government’s announcement that it had secured a fee ‘exemption’ from the FAA for Bahamian airlines on domestic flights (see other article on Page 1B).

“I say to the Government: Great. But I don’t know why it has taken them so long. Why not get a percentage of what the FAA is taking, and put it into the aviation industry to cover the costs of the Family Island airports?

“Get a percentage of what the FAA collects and put it into aviation to help grow and manage the Family Island airports, provide scholarships for people wanting to be in the industry, and work to get all our air space back.”

The Government yesterday said the ‘exemption’ for Bahamian airlines is expected to take effect “in the very near future”, although no specific deadline was given.

While it appears to be a first step towards the Bahamas taking back control of its air space and establishing a Flight Information Region (FIR), something that will allow this nation to levy and collect fees from airlines flying over this nation rather than the FAA, the US appears to be taking a long-term view.

It was confirmed yesterday that the FAA will continue to manage Bahamian airspace, as it has done since 1952, for another 10 years to allow this nation to build the necessary capacity to develop an FIR.

This seemingly dashes Mr Butler’s hopes for a rapid Bahamian takeover, with the Sky Bahamas chief likening yesterday’s announcement to the FAA “not charging us rent for living in our own home, which we’ve been paying for 60 years”.

“Something’s wrong with that,” he told Tribune Business. “I encourage the Government, I applaud them, especially since we’ve had Majority Rule Day for so long and still don’t have control of our own air space.

“We are celebrating not paying something that should not have been paid in the beginning. Bahamian airlines are not getting their money back. That money has already been spent, resulting in a lot of lost opportunities for Bahamians.

“Small steps are good, and we’re moving in the right direction. We just need to own all of it.”

Mr Butler said the arrangement with the FAA, made before Majority Rule by the former colonial authorities, had effectively deprived the Bahamas and its aviation industry - a sector vital to tourism and inter-island commerce in the Family Islands - of much-needed revenues.

This, he added, had manifested itself in problems such as the lack of maintenance at Family Island airports, with runways sometimes going unrepaired and lacking lights to facilitate night flights.

“We got approval to go into Exuma,” Mr Butler revealed to Tribune Business, “but on the approach last month we were told that because the air traffic controllers didn’t get their overtime, they were not working that evening and we couldn’t land.

“We have been periodically paying those overtime fees to the controllers; we had to, because the Government was not paying it, and they wouldn’t work the evening.”

Mr Butler said that Sky Bahamas had to return to Nassau with a full plane-load of people as a result of the aborted Exuma night flight, forcing it to give them a free trip the following day and “pay additional fees” to lay on another flight for scheduled travellers.

A 2004 International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) paper on the proposed Bahamian FIR, said that apart from this nation taking “full control over its sovereign airspace”, the initiative would create 100 direct jobs and annual government revenues of $30 million.

“The project will create significant directly related employment of about 100 people in high technology areas of the economy, and several times that number in additional support jobs,” the ICAO paper said.

“The new FIR will generate revenues in excess of $30 million annually. The revenue stream will not only finance the capital costs of implementing the total project and pay for the yearly operations and maintenance budget of the Department Civil Aviation, but will also be able to contribute to financing the development of Family Island aerodromes.”

Given the increase in aviation traffic to the Bahamas over the past decade, it is likely this nation could earn more than $30 million by developing its own FIR.