The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

A Bahamian-owned airline yesterday said passenger volumes for the Easter weekend were projected to be up 3 per cent year-over-year, with load factors averaging 80 per cent “all around”.

Captain Randy Butler, president and chief executive of Sky Bahamas, told Tribune Business: “Domestically, the holiday weekend is very good with a lot of flights. The domestic market is up, and seasonal flights to Florida are up.”

He added that load factors on Sky Bahamas’ Bahamian routes were between a “solid” 72-84 per cent, with volumes on its Fort Lauderdale trips around 61 per cent.

With the Easter weekend through until Tuesday “off the scale”, Captain Butler added: “My guys were doing the numbers last night, and so far the projection is that we’ll be up 3 per cent over last year.”

Meanwhile, conceding that ever-increasing fees continued to pose a challenge to Sky Bahamas and the entire Bahamian aviation sector, Captain Butler said his airline still hoped to reach “a happy medium” with the Nassau Airport Development Company (NAD) over the fees it collected - and passed on - on the latter’s behalf.

Sky Bahamas had previously proposed levying a 5 per cent ‘collection processing fee’ on all the fees it collected and remitted to NAD, a proposal that was quickly shot down by the Lynden Pindling International Airport (LPIA) operator.

It warned Sky Bahamas to “cease and desist” from such ideas, and Captain Butler said yesterday: “We understand, but we’re living it and it’s costing us. While we’re willing to pay our way, they should be, too.”

Arguing that Sky Bahamas’ proposal was “a fair compromise”, Captain Butler again reiterated that it was normal practice at many airports for operators to be paid an ‘administration fee’ to cover costs in collecting and remitting due taxes to local authorities.

To avoid ‘paying tax on a tax’, Sky Bahamas has altered the way it calculates and presents its Business Licence application, so as not to include the fees and charges it passes on to NAD.

“It’s not revenue for us. We’re paying 3-5 per cent just collecting that,” Captain Butler told Tribune Business. “We’re not looking for revenue. We just want a zero net effect.”

Praising NAD for LPIA’s cleanliness and rapid response to the needs of various operators, Captain Butler said of the fees and proposed administrative levy: “We’d like to sit down at the table as partners and work everything out, where we keep our costs down and costs to the customer down.”

Captain Butler added that Sky Bahamas had “scaled back” some routes, such as Nassau to Fort Lauderdale, to holiday dates.

“We’re cutting the fat, and doing what we can to stay lean and mean, and keep people employed,” he said.