By NICO SCAVELLA

Tribune Staff Reporter

nscavella@tribunemedia.net

THE government yesterday hailed as “fundamental progress” its signing of an agreement with the United States Federal Aviation Administration, which brings the country one step closer to collecting its own overflight fees from aircraft transiting Bahamian airspace.

Transport and Aviation Minister Glenys Hanna Martin said the FAA has agreed to enter an agreement for a ten-year management of this country’s airspace with “terms to be agreed”, which she said would include the payment of a management fee to the FAA and the collection of “our own overflight fees”, the latter of which she said has been performed by the FAA for the last 60-plus years.

The aforementioned is the result of yesterday’s signing of the Declaration of Intent on Flight Information Region (DIFIR) by both parties, which deals primarily with the overflight fees issue, as well as the formalisation of an arrangement between the two countries for the management of the Bahamas’ airspace, associated fees, and “agreeing or working together to agree a mechanism for the collection of overflight fees”.

The FAA and the Bahamas government also signed off on the Radar Data Sharing Agreement (RDSA) yesterday, which FAA officials said will ultimately improve “both the efficiency and the safety of the system and the flights that are taking place in numerous amounts between the United States and the Bahamas.”

Under international laws, countries require airlines and other aircraft to pay a fee for the right to fly over their airspace. The administration of those rights in the Bahamas has been performed by the FAA since 1952, meaning Bahamasair and other Bahamian-owned carriers have had to pay the US for the privilege of flying over their own country.

According to Mrs Hanna Martin, the payment of overflight fees by Bahamian aircraft for domestic flights to the FAA has been in abeyance since January 1 of this year, which was around the same time in which Prime Minister Perry Christie expressed optimism that a “final agreement” would be reached to “govern the terms and conditions of the FAA’s management of Bahamian airspace.”

Yesterday, Mrs Hanna Martin said the signing of the DIFIR as well as the RDSA is the “culmination of a journey” towards the Bahamas ultimately regaining full control of its own airspace, after previously engaging in several years of negotiations with the FAA on the matter.

“So it’s a more collaborative, cooperative environment, which I think is really a major step forward as opposed to the United States managing the airspace and we’re the recipients of that excellent service,” she said. “We’re now in a cooperative and a collaborative environment where both states work together for a singular objective, which is the interest of safety and efficiency in the global aviation sector.”

When asked by The Tribune as to when the agreements might be finalised with the FAA, Mrs Hanna Martin said: “They are meeting now, they’ve gone into caucus now to get into the issue of the 10 year agreement. I’m not sure they would conclude that (yesterday), but that is the next thing on the table. And we expect that to be concluded very shortly, on the agreed terms of the continued management of the airspace.

“This is on the fast track to completion, and we hope in a very short period of time everything will be regularised.”

Meanwhile, Carey Fagan, FAA executive director of international affairs, said the signing of both documents is an “excellent example of the cooperation that exists” between the US and the Bahamas.

“We’ve made great progress in our discussions, we’re working towards the agreements that are necessary to enable us to manage the upper airspace on behalf of the Bahamas under a mutually acceptable arrangement, and that’s what we will continue to work on over the next few months,” Ms Fagan said.

“We’re also very happy that we are able to make some changes in our regulations to allow us to exempt certain flights that are flying amongst the Bahamian islands, and it’s something that we had been wanting to do for quite some time and we went through that process in the United States to enable that,” she added, referring to the overflight fees. “So we look forward to continuing that here in the Bahamas as well.”

In January, Mr Christie said the government-subsidised national flag carrier, Bahamasair, had paid overflight fees “in excess of $1 million” over the last three years.

At the time, Sky Bahamas chief executive, Captain Randy Butler, also said Bahamian airlines have been paying $100,000-plus to the FAA in overflight fees per annum.

“That’s anywhere from four to five persons’ salary,” he said at the time.