By FAY SIMMONS

Tribune Business Reporter

jsimmons@tribunemedia.net

THE Government’s aviation director yesterday hailed the positive “industrial climate” with trade unions in the sector.

Dr Kenneth Romer said Chester Cooper, deputy prime minister and minister of tourism, investments and aviation, has had “productive” conversations with union leaders.

He added: “I will say that the industrial climate in aviation has been very positive. Deputy prime minister has personally met again with the president and members of the Bahamas pilots union. I think the thoughts on the conversations were very productive, and he has given them assurance.

“I’m very satisfied sitting in that meeting that some of the matters that might have been contenders in nature have been given the appropriate attention. So we’re going to see some progress when it comes to enter negotiations with our unions.”

Mr Romer said there are plans to expand the Lynden Pindling International Airport(LPIA), and its operator, Nassau Airport Development Company, (NAD) is preparing to undergo an expansion of terminals, runways and aprons.

He added: “That is a part of the plan. So you would hear the chairman and president of NAD speaking about expansion, and not just expansion for the physical and the terminal sides, but a lot of it is going to speak about how we address the expansion of the air side - the aprons and the runway - so great things are in store again for LPIA.”

On managing airport traffic, Mr Romer said NAD has a traffic management plan and is working with Customs and the Airport Authority to stagger flight schedules and address capacity constraints. He added that last year was the best LPIA has enjoyed with managing traffic during peak times.

He said: “When we speak to capacity and traffic management during peak times, the airport again is at capacity, so a lot of how we address capacity constraints has to do with how we kind of stagger the flight schedules.

“Most of our airlines, of course, are coming in during peak times. So peak times for arrival and departure are contributing towards that congestion that we are sometimes experiencing, and NAD again as the operator of LPIA, specifically, has a plan that speaks to traffic management.

“They’re working again with the [US] Customs and Border Protection, Airport Authority, but beyond that are doing some innovations when it comes to managing traffic from the air side. So we spoke about our air traffic control. We spoke about the FBOs (fixed base operators). Perhaps sometimes you’ll have the smaller carriers depart outside of the time for our legacy carriers,” Dr Romer said.

“So there were innovations and there was just a collaboration of working together between the person and the airside on the land side components for the airports, not just at LPIA that really has the lion’s share of these congestion issues, but they are working together as teams and collaborating. And I said this year past is probably the best you would have had in not a long period of time when it comes to managing traffic during the peak times.”