By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

Bahamasair's chairman yesterday warned the airline will "close down" without an increase in taxpayer subsidies after its top-line was cut by $22m due to Hurricane Dorian and COVID-19.

Tommy Turnquest, speaking after the national flag carrier was ordered to cease commercial flights into the US, told Tribune Business that revenues for the 2020 financial year that just closed at end-June were likely to be down 24 percent year-over-year - from $92m to $70m.

With taxpayers already pumping an eight-figure sum annually into Bahamasair to keep it flying prior to COVID-19, Mr Turnquest said "you don't have to be a rocket scientist" to realise that a further cash call on the Public Treasury beyond the $19m provided in the 2020-2021 budget will be forthcoming.

He added, though, that the government's decision to halt all the carrier's commercial flights into Florida as a means to prevent Bahamians bringing COVID-19 home could actually end up saving the airline money.

Bahamasair's chairman said the airline had been poised to "aggressively" cut back its services into Orlando with effect from yesterday, given that it had been transporting just six passengers both ways in its 60-70 seater ATR planes.

Acknowledging that the prime minister had effectively "made the decision" for Bahamasair, Mr Turnquest said it may "be 2021" when the airline returns to Florida if the state fails to get its COVID-19 outbreak under control before year-end.

He explained that the carrier appeared poised to lose four of the five months it relies upon to minimise Bahamian taxpayer exposure, with the only peak traffic period remaining in 2020 being the November/December period containing the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.

"Bahamasair would have a boom for five months, and those five months are what carries Bahamasair for the year," Mr Turnquest said, referring to Easter and the June-August summer period.

"For October, November and December last year, Grand Bahama and Abaco were out of the mix because of Hurricane Dorian. We estimate probably a loss of around $8m as a result of that shortfall. Then we were in lockdown in mid-March with the COVID-19 virus."

Bahamasair previously estimated that it lost $10.5m as a result of its near-three month shutdown, as it was forced to cover staff salaries and other overheads on zero revenue income. Mr Turnquest confirmed that the full consequences of that combined $18.5m hit will be felt in the results for its just-closed 2020 financial year.

"In the financial year ending on June 2019, our revenues were $92m," Mr Turnquest told Tribune Business. "This year it's going to be around $70m." The latest lockdown, coming just three weeks into the airline's new financial year, means the COVID-19 direct impact will also be felt in its 2021 financial results for at least the first quarter.

"Depending in when we're back up, we may get a bump at Thanksgiving and Christmas if the US gets the situation under control," he added. "If they don't it will be 2021." While there have been no discussions with government yet, Mr Turnquest said an increase in the Public Treasury subvention to fill growing financial holes was inevitable if it wanted to keep the national flag carrier in the air.

"There's an increase in subvention or we close down. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to figure that out," he told Tribune Business. "We'd just got started, and the loads were really, really low. For example, last week Tuesday or Wednesday, we took six people to Orlando and brought six people back in a 60-70 seater ATR.

"That's just straight losing money. In the summer months, we would normally go into Orlando three times a day. Sometimes, on a good weekend, we'd squeeze in four flights; the loads were that good going into Orlando in the summer months. You put those current load factors against three to four flights that were just chock-a-block.

"The Florida routes, we really weren't making any money anyway since we restarted because the loads were low," Mr Turnquest continued. "Even to Fort Lauderdale we were around 40-60 persons on a 120-seater aircraft, so we were around 40-50 percent load factors, sometimes 60-70 percent, but very rarely.

"They [the Government] have made the decision for us. We save money by not going there. We've been going in every day to Orlando since July 1, and were going to cut back on that aggressively from today [yesterday]. We were going to cut back to four times a week."

Mr Turnquest added that Bahamasair will also have to contend with the loss of its routes to and from Freeport for the time being, after the Government suspended all domestic aviation into and out of that island to counter the surge in COVID-19 cases on that island.

"That's going to cause some financial strain," he conceded. "We've still got Marsh Harbour and Rock Sound in Eleuthera. The load factors on both those flights have not been bad. We've been running two flights a day into each of those. They're surprisingly better than we thought but it's still a struggle."