By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

A prominent Freeport hotelier yesterday said the government’s acquisition of Grand Bahama International Airport is “pivotal to the survival” of the island’s economy.

Magnus Alnebeck, the Pelican Bay hotel’s general manager, told Tribune Business that the Minnis administration needed to “immediately tackle the low-hanging fruit once it gets the key” to convince Freeport’s private sector and wider population that positive change is finally coming.

The government has allocated $1.5m to improve the air traffic control tower and its elevator, repair the domestic cargo hangar and put offices in the former domestic terminal while it seeks a private sector partner to manage the facility and raise $50m to finance its rebuilding, but Mr Alnebeck urged it to also focus on more mundane issues.

These ranged from being able to purchase a simple bottle of water once a passenger has gone through airport security to having clean toilets and working luggage trolleys, with the Pelican Bay chief also calling for fuel and related ground-handling costs to be lowered “to entice the airlines” and increased passenger loads back to Grand Bahama.

With the US having indicated that pre-clearance facilities will only return once there is sufficient traffic between Grand Bahama and the US, and that they are housed in buildings that meet its security requirements, Mr Alnebeck hailed the impending exit of current owners, Hutchison Whampoa and the Grand Bahama Port Authority (GBPA), as “fantastic news”.

“It’s a great step in the right direction that the airport belongs to the Government,” he told this newspaper. “It’s not only about a tourism issue. It is pivotal for the survival of Grand Bahama. It’s vital that we have a fantastic international airport that is owned by someone who really cares about the destination.

“I don’t want to say it’s overdue, but it’s overdue and I think it will instill confidence in people thinking about whether they want to spend any more money in Grand Bahama. Knowing the Government is buying the airport will help everybody feel at ease in doing business in Grand Bahama.

“Now it’s up to the Government to show they can put things in place that can actually work. Governments can do a good job in owning an airport but they don’t do a good job operating it. Hopefully they will find someone quickly to start upgrading what is there at the moment.”

With the Government already moving to find a private sector partner to operate and finance the airport’s $50m redevelopment, Mr Alnebeck called on them to “immediately” focus on the “low hanging fruit” of a passenger experience which he described as “sadly missing from Grand Bahama”.

Calling on the Government to move on this “as soon as they get the key” to give the island confidence, he added: “The other important thing is to entice airlines back and lower the cost to fly to our destination. That needs to happen immediately.....

“What has always been a problem in Grand Bahama is that the turnaround costs have been too high for the type of airlift we want to attract. They need to come down - fuel, ground handling and baggage handling.

“They have to be competitive rates. They need to be on the same level, or preferably lower, than competitor destinations  and those competitor destinations are not necessarily Nassau; they might be the wider region.

“It’s all about costs and experience. We don’t have the services you have in Nassau with the hospital. We are a lot more attached by air to south Florida.”