The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune

As legendary tennis star John McEnroe said more than once to an umpire “you cannot be serious”. That seems like a good analogy to global giant Hutchinson Wampoa’s efforts to provide a temporary airport terminal for Grand Bahama. A building that received a handful of private flights each day is now our combined domestic and international terminal. In short, it is woefully inadequate and a complete embarrassment. Even more pathetic, it took them four months after ‘Dorian’ to come up with this bad joke.

Now that American Airlines has returned, we can now be treated once again to round trip fares to Miami that compare with transatlantic travel prices on an assortment of other carriers. In case you have not had the experience of arriving in Freeport, I will let you know what to expect. Once having disembarked you are herded toward a tent on the outside of the terminal. There you wait like displaced refugees while the bags are unloaded from the aircraft – good luck if it’s raining – the tent has no sides and holds two dozen people at best under cover. You then pull your bags up the ramp to enter the terminal. This is a narrow corridor at the end of which Immigration has four desks. There are rest rooms on the right – but a sign on the door says ‘out of order’. In the old terminal the arrival hall rest rooms were out of order for almost a year – clearly a signature Hutchinson welcome.

The Immigration officials are welcoming despite working in virtually unworkable conditions. Turn the corner pushing your baggage and you are in Customs. This is also a postage stamp space as most passengers are tripping over their own bags. You will eventually make it to the exit and will be correct in thinking what a sad experience this is, especially for our first-time visitors who have taken the time and effort and expense to come to see the many delights that Grand Bahama has to offer. Our baggage porter told us we were lucky to arrive ahead of two Sunwing flights when the chaos was amplified tenfold.

With domestic and international flights potentially arriving on top of each other, it simply adds to the frustration of passengers who have to wait their turn to collect bags and/or pass through the authorities. Leaving the island also has its challenges with domestic and international passengers crammed into a tiny departure lounge. Bottom line – the current facilities are totally unacceptable and expanded facilities should be built as quickly as possible. Domestic and international departures and arrivals should be separated and ‘modern inventions’ like conveyer belts (instead of trucks) should be installed to process baggage. No apologies for stating the obvious, but Hutchinson’s record of not having any brains is well documented.

The bigger picture is how long will we have to contend with this embarrassment. We all know of Hutchinson’s track record of taking the insurance money and doing nothing. It’s seems we are going down that path again. The airport, of course, should be owned by the Government and we are led to believe discussions are underway for that to happen. The silence for weeks now is deafening and any sense of urgency would seem virtually non-existent. It would also be useful to hear from the GB Port Authority as to their views/plans on their participation of the rebuilding process.

Hutchinson’s philosophy of squeezing the very life out of Grand Bahama will be the only thing they will be remembered for. They should first, however, not be allowed to walk away from any financial contribution toward rebuilding the airport. If we can get past this hurdle, and the hotels are sold, then that only leaves Hutchinson with 50 % ownership of Devco and the harbour. Making those acquisitions would be cause for a celebration the likes of which Grand Bahama has never seen. This giant global conglomerate has shown it colours over the years. They have demonstrated on too many occasions that they have neither a conscience nor any sense of corporate responsibility.

CHRIS PAINE

Grand Bahama

February 25, 2020