By RASHAD ROLLE
Tribune Staff Reporter
rrolle@tribunemedia.net
NEGOTIATORS from the governments of the Bahamas and the United States yesterday started long-awaited face-to-face talks over the management of the Bahamas’ airspace – talks which could result in the Bahamas receiving revenues from overflight fees.
The negotiations are at least ten years in the making and they come several weeks after Prime Minister Perry Christie explained that the US collects millions to control and manage the Bahamas’ airspace.
He noted that Bahamasair also has to pay the US for flying in the Bahamas’ airspace.
Speaking during a press conference at the Foreign Affairs and Immigration Ministry yesterday, Transport and Aviation Minister Glenys Hanna-Martin said: “We shall from this engagement be seeking an accord as it relates to the management of the Bahamas’ air space and a redefinition of that airspace which is consonant with the geographical reality of our archipelago.
“The management arrangement will in the first instance, we anticipate, lead to a sharing of revenues emanating from overflight fees and the exemption of Bahamas registered aircraft flying in Bahamas air space from the levying of such fees. We are expectant that our talks will be undergirded by clarity and cordiality and a prevailing mutual respect and that we will very quickly find common ground on all of the matters I have stated herein and any other matters which may arise in the course of discussions.”
She added that she could not say how much money the Bahamas could receive from the deal and that the negotiations will “determine how the math works out.”
She added that the money obtained would be used to invest in infrastructure and crash and rescue procedures.
Both the United States and the Bahamas are a part of the International Civil Aviation (ICA).
Calling yesterday’s meeting “historic,” US Charge d’Affaires John Armstrong noted that although various preliminary meetings have taken place in Washington between the two parties, this is the first time the negotiators have met face-to-face to find out what each side is interested in.
Deputy Prime Minister and Acting Foreign Affairs Minister Philip “Brave” Davis and Carey Fagan, Executive Director of International Affairs with the US’s Federal Aviation Administration (FDA), also spoke before yesterday’s meeting.
Comments
DEDDIE 10 years ago
Almost every nation in the Caribbean control their own airspace. Even Haiti does.It is part of been a sovereign country. I don't understand why we need to negotiate something that belongs to us. Set a date/put the necessary infrastructure/train personel and then make the transfer.
JohnDoes 10 years ago
We signed it over to the FAA and DEA.
retsof18 10 years ago
The British/ Great Britain negotiated/ signed that agreement with the Americans/ US before they pulled out of the Bahamas.
bimjim 10 years ago
Presumably either the international 200-mile exclusion zone of the USA is more important than and swallows that of the Bahamas, or st some point the Bahamas gave up the airspace control to the US because it would have been cheaper for the Bahamas that way.
I do know that Bahamas ATC controls and handles the lower levels over the islands - I have flown through there doing ferry flights and landed locally for fuel.
Most eastern Caribbean islands control their own airspace up to 20,000 feet (some are lower), and the Piarco FIR handles everything above that - but this would be impractical in the Bahamas with such close proximity to the mainland.
The DEA would have had their bases and flight anyway in international anti-drug cooperation - the same thing happens with both air a sea coordination as far down as Trinidad and the Grenadines.
B_I_D___ 10 years ago
The costs and training and implementation of providing the coverage...and therefor charging for use of our airspace, to the level that the US is doing at the moment for us, is seriously cost prohibitive. Our current ATC guys are overworked and underpaid and constantly battling system issues...and that's just in and around Nassau...they expect for us to provide all this extra cover, with added ATC guys that are disgruntled anyways...and to top it all off, we have no infrastructure in place...buying in all the extra radar equipment and radio equipment, probably having to create a new control room of sorts for the airspace ATC guys will cost us a small fortune. For a country that is broke, do we really want to spend hundreds of millions of dollars AGAIN, to fight for the chance of being able to charge people for our airspace, and even at that the payback and recouping of the costs will take decades to pay back. Common sense people...leave it be.
Sign in to comment
Or login with:
OpenID