The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

The South Andros Chamber of Commerce president yesterday said improving airlift to the island remains the highest priority for its economy.

Joe Rahming told Tribune Business: “Everything over here is fine except the air transportation seems to be the most difficult thing for us. We only have Western Air three days out of the week.”

The South Andros economy has been slowly “stabilising” since the relaxation of COVID-19 measures, but the Chamber president added: “We have a few young people employed with bonefish lodges, but other than that it could be more employment. People want to come home to more opportunity, but I hope we get more investments like how Grand Bahama has been getting recently.”

Another South Andros businessman, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: “Right now, there’s only Western Air. We also have Le-Air and Flamingo Air that have been rotating. With the two airlines it has been really slow. Sometimes you’ve been having difficulty with the websites not being up to date or saying that it’s not available. This makes people question how serious are these airlines, particularly form the visitor’s point of view.”

They added: “If Le-Air and Flamingo Air are going to rotate, then give us some notation or something to let them know to check the other airlines. People are worried about how they are going to get to Andros if one airline is not having any flights coming in. They need to clean that up.

“July, August and September, when you don’t have that heavy traffic, it would be good to get both of the airlines back on track for us given the potential of Andros. We are already impacted as it is in this country by not having sufficient airlines, and we know that traffic has to drive it, but we can’t be putting off the little bit that you have.”