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MONDAY, APRIL 24, 2023
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PM’s Bermuda flight ‘reckless, negligent’
Tourism ‘doesn’t need any more’ air fare fees
By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net
By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net
THE Prime Minister’s Bermuda trip has flown into a fresh storm of controversy as the airline responsible is battling a $200,000 fine over accusations it operated the flight in a “negligent and/or reckless” manner. Western Air, which carried Philip Davis KC, ex-prime minister Perry Christie and multiple Cabinet ministers, Senators and PLP officials to the mid-Atlantic island on October 19, 2022, raced to the Supreme Court earlier this month to successfully obtain an injunction barring the Civil Aviation Authority from suspending three key employees over the affair and inflicting “real and irreparable damage” to its peak Easter travel business.
• Western Air battles $200k fine, 90-day suspensions • Feared ‘real and irreparable damage’ over Easter • Judge bars Civil Aviation from enforcement action Justice Petra HannaAdderley, in her April 11, 2023, verdict that barred the Bahamian regulator from both enforcing the fine and suspensions, revealed that the flight at the centre of the aviation safety and regulatory dispute was the trip undertaken by the Prime Minister and his delegation. They were invited by Bermuda premier, David Burt, with Mr Davis addressing the ruling Progressive Labour Party conference.
The Civil Aviation Authority, in moving to initiate “enforcement action” against Western Air via the $200,000 fine, also sought 90-day suspensions for Captain Gregory Rolle, the airline’s senior pilot and flight instructor; Captain Caneil Cartwright, a senior pilot; and Jason Nairn, manager of its Flight Control Centre, over their roles in the Prime Minister’s Bermuda trip. However, Justice Hanna-Adderley maintained “the status quo”
PHILIP DAVIS KC and granted Western Air’s injunction while ordering that the airline must launch its Judicial Review challenge to the Civil Aviation Authority’s decision and its enforcement by May 1, 2023. Rex Rolle, Western Air’s president, director and accountable manager, had received a letter from Alexander Ferguson, Civil Aviation’s
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Air fares blamed for 20% Briland villa rentals drop By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net A HARBOUR Island realtor has blamed “crazy” air fares that have more than doubled compared to pre-COVID for a 20 percent slowdown in high-end villa rentals during the 2023 peak winter season. James Malcolm, of the Bahamas Property Group, told Tribune Business that while some clients were prepared to pay up to $20,000-$30,000 per week to rent prime properties they are very “sensitive” to costs they deem unreasonable
JAMES MALCOLM and are reluctant to “over pay for air fares”. Noting that round-trip air fares into Eleuthera from the US have more than doubled since the pandemic,
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Hotel union: ‘One item’ away on industrial deal By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net THE HOTEL union’s president says it is just “one item” away from concluding an industrial agreement with the main employer body, and believes once it is completed other “dominoes” will fall. Darrin Woods, the Bahamas Hotel, Catering and Allied Workers Union’s (BHCAWU) chief, told Tribune Business that he hopes to close negotiations with the Bahamas Hotel and Restaurant Employers Association, which represents Atlantis in particular, “in short order” on a deal that will result in members
DARRIN WOODS being paid in accordance with the sector’s status as the country’s “number one industry”. And he forecast that successfully completing those talks will have a “cascading” effect that results in
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THE Bahamas must work with the airline industry “to put a ceiling” on travel costs to the destination, a senior hotelier is asserting, as this nation “doesn’t need any more taxes” included in ticket prices. But Robert Sands, the Bahamas Hotel and Tourism Association’s (BHTA) president, while acknowledging frustration that taxes are now higher than the cost of airline tickets themselves nevertheless told Tribune Business the situation cannot be viewed in isolation or without understanding what they pay for. Of the roughly $150 in taxes and fees built-into airline tickets, he explained that The Bahamas accounts for around two-thirds of this sum - some $90-$100. And, of the latter figure, the largest component is a passenger user fee which finances repayment of
ROBERT SANDS the $409.5m debt funding for Lynden Pindling International’s (LPIA) transformation into a “world class facility” demanded by Bahamians and visitors alike. Without such a stopover visitor gateway to facilitate the growth in air arrivals, Mr Sands told this newspaper that The Bahamas and its largest industry would be “dead in the water”. The BHTA chief, though, conceded that this nation’s status as a high-cost destination was pricing some potential visitors out of
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