The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

Deputy Prime Minister Chester Cooper last night said the government will defend the country’s right to collect overflight fees in the face of threats by US airlines to stop flights.

Mr Cooper, also the Minister for Tourism, Investments and Aviation, said in a statement last night that the government note, “the complaint to the US Department of Transport from some of our USA partner airlines”.

He said: “We intend to formally respond to the complaint and will not litigate the matter in the press. We value the relationships we have built with our tourism partners and always operate with a view to maintaining them and promoting a balanced consultative process.

“We assure the Bahamian people that we will always defend our sovereign right to manage and charge for the use of our airspace; having regard to the internationally held principles of fairness, transparency and cost-relatedness.”

Mr Cooper was responding after US airlines lodged a formal complaint to the US Department of Transportation over “discrimination” over the collection of fees to use the Bahamian airspace.

The joint complaint, filed on December 19 under the International Air Transportation Fair Competitive Practices Act, was made by American Airlines Group, Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings, Delta Air Lines, FedEx, JetBlue Airways, Southwest Airlines, United Airlines, and United Parcel Service.

They allege the fees being charged are unjust, discriminatory, anticompetitive and unreasonable – and further alleged that The Bahamas is levying astronomical charges for air navigation services that exceed the costs to The Bahamas of providing those services by millions of dollars.

The Bahamas has brought in over $30m in overflight fees last fiscal year and are targeting more than $40m for this fiscal year. This is performing well over what was forecast by Dionisio D’Aguilar, the former Minister for Tourism under the previous administration led by Dr Hubert Minnis, who averaged it to be just over $2m a month in collected overflight fees when the agreement between the Bahamas government and the US Federal Aviation Administration.