Issuu

business@tribunemedia.net

Thursday, OcTOber 30, 2025

$5.48 $5.09

$5.49

$5.48

Aviation group challenges fee’s ‘cataclysmic burden’

Fishermen optimistic Melissa will miss 70% of key fishing grounds

By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

BAHAMIAN pilots and aircraft owners are challenging a Lynden Pindling International Airport (LPIA) fee they assert has imposed “a cataclysmic financial burden” on their operations by causing “a several-fold increase in monthly expenditure”. The Bahamas Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (BAOPA), in an October 24, 2025, letter to the Nassau Airport Development Company (NAD), LPIA’s operator, appears to query whether the extension of the Airport Infrastructure Improvement Fee to general aviation flights arriving from destinations within The Bahamas complied with the necessary laws and regulations when implemented on March 1, 2024.

LYNDEN PINDLING INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT (LPIA)

• Pilots, aircraft owners query LPIA levy • Question way extended to local flights • NAD says concerns are being reviewed

And, noting that NAD has previously stated that this particular fee does not apply to “commercial carriers”, whether foreign or domestic, the Association is questioning why it is being levied against private aviation flights that are also for commercial purposes - carrying fee-paying passenger. The letter, which has been obtained by Tribune Business and is also now under “review” by

NAD, also asked whether the fee can be levied on flights leaving Odyssey Aviation and Jet Nassau, the two fixed base operators (FBOs), when they were not included in the September 18 2023, notice announcing the charge’s extension to general aviation flights originating from other Bahamian destinations. NAD, in a statement responding to Tribune Business inquiries, said: “NAD is in receipt of a letter from the Bahamas Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, which is dated October 24, 2025, and only just received by NAD on October 28, 2025. We are now reviewing their concerns and will respond to them following that review.” The LPIA operator had previously modified the Airport Infrastructure Improvement Fee in

CHARGES - See Page B8

Stop ‘playing politics’ on blacklisting of Bahamas By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net THE Opposition’s deputy leader yesterday sparked rare House of Assembly unity by demanding both major parties stop “playing politics” over ‘blacklistings’ and other threats to the Bahamian financial services industry. Shanendon Cartwright, the St Barnabas MP, urged his parliamentary colleagues to focus on “asserting our sovereignty and fight for The Bahamas” by telling the likes of the European Union (EU) and Organisation for Economic

SHANENDON CARTWRIGHT Co-Operation and Development (OECD) to “take their feet off the necks off the Bahamian people”. His intervention, which urged MPs to stop

ADVERSITY - See Page B5

‘No cards off table’ over Bahamas reinsurer talks By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net BAHAMAS First’s chief executive yesterday said local carriers have not been told “to take the cards off the table” in treaty renewal talks with global reinsurers due to Hurricane Melissa, adding of the storm’s impact: “It’s too early to tell.” Richard Darville told Tribune Business that, with Jamaica yet to complete its own damage assessments given it has been just two days since the Category Five hurricane struck, it was “a bit premature” to determine whether the likely multi-billion global insurance industry payout will

have an effect for premium rates and catastrophe coverage availability in The Bahamas moving into 2026. Bahamian property and casualty insurers, due to their relatively thin capital bases, have to purchase huge quantities of reinsurance annually to enable them to underwrite the multi-billion risks present in this nation, and negotiations on renewals of their reinsurance treaties typically start now - just as Melissa devastated Jamaica and Cuba, before moving through the southern Bahamas yesterday with the extent of that damage unknown at press time. Mr Darville confirmed that

COVERAGE - See Page B9

FISHERMEN yesterday voiced optimism that Hurricane Melissa will have missed between 70-75 percent of the prime fishing grounds in the southern Bahamas while acknowledging it is “a nerve-wracking time” for colleagues with homes in those islands. Keith Carroll, the National Fisheries Association’s (NFA) president, told Tribune Business that the industry would “have been in much more trouble” if Melissa - which was forecast to move through this nation as a Category Two to One hurricane - had the storm followed a track that took it further to the west through the major fishing areas. Expressing confidence that it will not “do too much damage” to existing fishing condos and traps, or prospects for the likes of crawfish season, he added that many fishermen had “learned from Hurricane

Joaquin’s” devastation in 2015 and either relocated their vessels out of harm’s way or moved the smaller ones to “higher ground”. “The majority of the fishing grounds are not going to be affected,” Mr Carroll told this newspaper. “I would say maybe about 25-30 percent of them will be; the fishing grounds close to Ragged Island. If she’d come further west we would be in much more trouble, but the way it’s going right now; avoiding Ragged Island, closer to Long Island, I don’t think it will do too much damage to the majority of the fishing grounds. “It ain’t going to affect much of it. It’s only a small piece of the fishing grounds close to Ragged Island. A lot of the Long Island fishermen fish around the Ragged Island chain. I hope they don’t get damaged. There’s a lot of fishermen in Long Island, but 70 percent of the fishermen don’t fish that area that much.”

STORM - See Page B8