The Tribune

Bahamasair’s managing director last night confirmed that one-third of its fleet has been grounded for more than a week after damages caused by a “blown tyre” forced another plane offline.

Tracy Cooper, the national flag carrier’s managing director, told Tribune Business that the temporary loss of the 70-seater ATR had worsened the aircraft shortage caused by the extended wait time for repaired plane engines to be returned by their overseas manufacturer, Pratt & Whitney.

With two aircraft grounded since August due to the engine delays, the loss of another plane - sustained while taxiing at Palm Beach International Airport on Sunday, December 8 - has resulted in Bahamasair having to service its route schedule with just two, or 40 percent, of its five-strong ATR fleet available. And, when the airline’s jets are added to the mix, three of its total nine-strong fleet have been grounded.

While Bahamasair is hoping to recover the “blown tyre” ATR as early as today, Mr Cooper told this newspaper that it will now not receive the extra plane it was hoping to add to its fleet before the peak Christmas and New Year travel period. He added that the national flag carrier is set to take possession of the additional ATR in the New Year once it has been repainted and the previous operator’s colours removed.

And, while the airline is hoping to restore another grounded plane to service in early 2025, with two of the five aircraft engines currently in Pratt & Whitney’s possession forecast to be returned “in the first week of January”, this will not occur in time for the peak Christmas and New Year travel season when carriers generate a significant portion of their annual revenues.

Mr Cooper, though, signalled that Bahamasair will not be unduly impacted by the loss of the three aircraft while conceding that the airline’s financial performance over the festive season is unlikely to match the prior year’s due to the plane shortage. The three impacted ATRs are used primarily for domestic inter-island routes, with the Bahamasair chief adding that its international business will not be affected.

Knowing it was already short by two planes, Mr Cooper said Bahamasair had adjusted its Christmas schedule according to the aircraft that would be available. Besides using its jets to service domestic routes where they could, especially Freeport, he added that the installation of runway lighting at Family Island airports has also enabled it to fly longer hours into the night.

Amid passenger complaints of flight delays and cancellations, the Bahamasair managing director confirmed the Palm Beach mechanical problems when contacted by Tribune Business. “The airplane did sustain some small damages,” Mr Cooper said. “Everything has been repaired, and Bahamasair is just waiting on the manufacturer for the release of the plane.

“We’re hoping to get that tomorrow [today] or the day after. The airplane was taxiing out and suffered a blown tyre. That caused some minor damages to the aircraft around the fairing, around the wheel. That part is on the plane now. All we’re doing is waiting on the manufacturer to give us the final release.”

Social media and online speculation was yesterday suggesting that the ATR’s landing gear had collapsed, and that the US aviation regulator, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), had grounded the plane after other mechanical faults were discovered. However, this was refuted by Mr Cooper yesterday, and he was backed by other aviation industry sources familiar with the situation.

“It was a tyre that exploded and damaged the part that covers the landing gear, the fairing,” one source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said. “It was not a gear collapse. There are two wheels. One failed, and one stayed on. There was damage they had to repair. It was not just the wheel. They had to locate the part to replace it.”

Another contact added: “The aircraft was taxiing out and the wheel blew up. The wheel well is mangled. There is in-fighting between the mechanics and the pilots over who was to blame. So there are only two ATRs in service; two 50-seat ATR42s are in the hangar [waiting for engines]. The 70-seat ATR is in Palm Beach. As a result, the 737 jets are flying a lot but they [Bahamasair] don’t have sufficient crews on the 737s to cover all the flying.” 

Data from Flight Aware, a website that tracks the routs covered by aircraft, shows that all flights for the ATR that suffered the blown tyre, C6-BFW, have been cancelled since the Sunday, December 8, mishap. Among the cancelled flights is today’s round-trip to Exuma, with five previous flights between that island and Nassau, as well as routes to Marsh Harbour and San Salvador, also voided.

This has likely disrupted pre-Christmas travel plans for tourists and Bahamians alike, and Mr Cooper yesterday revealed that the hoped-for pre-Christmas arrival of an additional 70-seater ATR will now not occur until the New Year. “That air plane, unfortunately, we will probably not get that until the early part of January,” he told Tribune Business.

“We have to paint the plane because it’s in somebody else’s colours. It is owned by a leasing company, and it was leased to SAS. It has SAS’s livery on it, so we have to put it in the paint shop before we can get it to The Bahamas. We expect it will go into the paint shop in another week’s time.”

Mr Cooper told last month’s Long Island Business Outlook conference that two ATRs have been grounded since August as they wait for the return of repaired engines from their manufacturer, Pratt & Whitney. He explained that the latter’s supply chain woes have resulted in repair times tripling in some cases, escalating from 45-60 days to up to 150 days.

Confirming yesterday that this situation persists, the Bahamasair chief said: “We expect we should be getting two engines from Pratt & Whitney in the first week of January. They probably have about five of our engines. We expect that we will get one of those air planes moving at the beginning of January once we get the engines for them coming back.”

Mr Cooper, though, said Bahamasair’s Christmas and New Year schedule adjustments will minimise the impact of their loss. “We understand about the engines and the two aircraft,” he said. “What we did is we adjusted the schedule going into Christmas to suit those planes that would be in service,” he added.

“It’s not having as much of an effect. We’ve just made some schedule adjustments. We have used the 737s a bit more on the domestic side; Freeport is happy to see that. We’ve augmented the schedule to fit the amount of planes we have. We’ve also used other carriers to assist us, so it’s not been as much cancellations. We’ve been completing the schedule as expected on most of the days.

“Most of our international flights are not affected. Most of the effects, and where we have done some adjustments, has been around the islands. We’re happy a lot of the Family Islands have precision approach lights that allow us to fly in the night,” Mr Cooper said.

“In some instances, we’re flying longer days. We’d normally be finishing with some of the planes at 6.30pm to 7pm. Some of the planes are now flying to 9pm. We make the adjustments to suit what we have. There are one or two fewer flights because we have trimmed the flight schedule due to having less planes.”

Mr Cooper said that while passenger volumes are in lie with typical Christmas travel, the reduction in available planes and flights means Bahamasair is unlikely to match the financial performance of prior years. “We expect that it will almost be as good as prior years,” he added.

“We have a plane or two not in circulation, so it will have some impact, but for the majority of flights going to the US and coming back, those routes will not be affected. For Christmas we always see higher load factors. We’re seeing normal load factors, somewhere around the 80 percent range or so on the flights. We expect that for Christmas time.

“We’ve been dealing with the Pratt & Whitney situation for a few months now. That was predictable. We made the adjustments so that we were OK. We’re relatively OK with the flights. We’re completing all the missions with the exception of one or two so we’re relatively OK.”