The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

SIR Lynden Pindling International Airport met its projected 6,000 passenger arrival for this past weekend and expects this to maintain this volume throughout the remainder of the holiday season, a top executive at the Nassau Airport Development Company (NAD) said yesterday.

Jan Knowles, vice president of marketing and communications, told Tribune Business yesterday: “We were pleased with how operations went over the weekend. The airport community worked closely together to successfully welcome thousands of arriving passengers this weekend given preliminary passenger numbers on Saturday, December 18, and Sunday, December 19. Like other airports around the world, LPIA is experiencing heavier traffic due to the traditionally busy holiday season.”

 NAD was expected to handle over 6,000 passengers this past weekend, a mark that has not been met in many months, Ms Knowles said, but she is happy to note that while there were some cancellations it remained in the 6,000 passenger range as the LPIA was “the busiest it has been in quite some time”.

Ms Knowles added: “The airport community managed the many schedule changes over the weekend to smoothly accommodate all arriving and departing flights. Stakeholders like Nassau Flight Services, Airport Authority, Bahamas Customs and Bahamas Immigration, USCPB (US Custom and Border Protection) and Air Traffic Control played a pivotal role in ensuring airport operations were successful.

 “We anticipate travel will be busy throughout the holidays and into the New Year and are grateful for the recovery of our business at this time. We are cautiously optimistic in the face of the new virus variant that appears to be gaining traction in some of our source markets. We have not seen any major cancellations in this regard and preliminary numbers indicate we met our projected passenger volumes over the weekend.”