The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

Tourism officials have already reached out to American Airlines over the relatively high airfares that are making Grand Bahama uncompetitive, Tribune Business was told yesterday.

Carmel Churchill, director of marketing services for the Grand Bahama Island Tourism Promotion Board (GBITB), said the organisation was already working with newly-appointed acting director of aviation, Dr Kenneth Romer, to get more affordable flights into Grand Bahama.

She said: “We can use American Airlines as an example. So, he (Dr Romer) has reached out immediately to the American Airlines representative, who just returned a response to us on Monday morning and they did detect that something in their system was showing that airfare was quite high, and they don’t seem to know why that’s the case, but they are taking a closer look at it.

“Then there are instances where, when you compare with Nassau, Grand Bahama is coming up at almost double the price. So they have made a commitment to take a look at it a lot more closely, and they have also made a commitment to work with us on an ongoing basis to improve both airlift as well as cost of coming to the destination.”

Airline ticket prices are determined by supply and demand, with load factors (passenger numbers) and flight frequency driven by how many persons are attracted to the tourism destination being served as well as the number of hotel rooms that are available.

With just one of the Grand Lucayan’s three properties still open, which has been the situation ever since Memories/Sunwing pulled out in late 2016, Grand Bahama’s room inventory - especially for leisure tourism - has shrunk to the bare minimum.

With leisure travel demand virtually “non-existent”, in the words of one Grand Bahama hotelier, airlines such as American Airlines have greatly reduced flight frequency and capacity in line with the much-lower passenger numbers.

Magnus Alnebeck, the Pelican Bay resort’s general manager, earlier this week told Tribune Business that it is “impossible to build a tourist destination” on Grand Bahama when airline ticket prices fluctuate between $3,000 and $150 within a timespan of barely several days.

Asserting that such volatile swings make it virtually impossible to build sustainable airlift to Grand Bahama, he added that the island simply lacks the airlift capacity, infrastructure and hotel rooms to cope with “the peaks and valleys” created by the Grand Bahama Shipyard.

Mr Alnebeck confirmed that, on days when a ship’s crew is being flown out, all the outbound seats on the flight to Miami are taken, raising prices for a one-way ticket as high as $3,000. But, on days when there is no such business, the Pelican Bay chief said aircraft load factors drop as low as 10 percent with tickets falling to $150 for the same journey.

Ms Churchill yesterday responded: “There are a number of variables that determine the price of airfares. However, between the Ministry of Tourism’s focused attention on marketing Grand Bahama and the partnership with the Promotion Board, very shortly you would start to see some promotional efforts focused on messaging for Grand Bahama, driving persons to the destination and ultimately increasing demand for the destination.

“So, therefore, we should start to see better frequency in flights to the destination, as well as competitive airfares. There’s all these variables that are taken into consideration. What we are very disappointed in - and I know that the Tourism Board as well as the office members and direct chair subscribe to this particular view - is the fact that there’s a very limited amount of flights coming into Grand Bahama.

“American Airlines is currently operating one flight per day out of Miami, which leaves our passengers in a position that if they’re coming from the north-east, they must overnight and, in most cases, if they overnight in Miami before coming on to Grand Bahama, then in some instances their flight flying time can be in excess of 16 hours to get to the destination which is very hard to accept.”

Ms Churchill added: “What is good for us, or what we are encouraged by, is the fact that there are persons seeking to come to the destination, a considerable amount. Particularly we’ve seen an uptick in persons coming from the Boston area that want to come into Grand Bahama.”

These persons are typically family-oriented with over six people per group, and they are “comfortable” with the accommodations and activities for them on the island.