By Fay Simmons

Tribune Business Reporter

jsimmons@tribunmedia.net

The Government’s aviation chief yesterday said The Bahamas plans to exploit a regional aviation conference’s presence by increasing its air connectivity with the “underserved market” that is Latin America.

Dr Kenneth Romer, director of aviation and also deputy director-general of tourism, said the Latin American and Caribbean Air Transport Association (ALTA) forum, which is being held in The Bahamas this week, will address international aviation concerns and provide an opportunity to speak with regional partners to strengthen relationships.

Disclosing that The Bahamas is seeking to enter air service agreements with Latin American nations to increase air traffic from the region, he added: “The significance of this conference speaks to addressing not just global matters, but matters that really impact Latin America and the Caribbean.

“This is, for us, an underserved market in The Bahamas. Latin America represents a significant economic opportunity. As tourism, we are eyeing the Latin American market. We’re looking at things such as air service agreements. We’re looking at inter-line agreements. We’re looking at direct connectivity from Latin American straight into Nassau and the Family Islands.”

Dr Romer said the Family Island Airport Renaissance Programme, a $260m project that is expected to transform 14 Out Island airports and related infrastructure, will upgrade these facilities to facilitate international flights from legacy carriers and attract new routes.

“When we speak about air connectivity, we cannot address that in isolation. There has to be the connection with airport infrastructure. All of the Government’s efforts in addressing airport infrastructure are designed to increase airlift and also to provide economic opportunities for local entrepreneurs and for stakeholders,” said Dr Romer.

“The reality is that airport infrastructure now has to meet certain standards when it comes to sustainability and resilience. So when it comes now to the connection between airlift and airport infrastructure development, I think we can start to see the connection.

“We’re just not building in isolation; we’re building with the end results in mind. We want to attract not just our traditional legacy carriers in the US but address and attract travel from Latin America and the Caribbean.”

Dr Romer said renovations to Exuma International Airport will position it to be a hub for passengers and cargo to the southern Bahamas. “We need more hubs. Exuma is going to be the hub for the southern Bahamas when we build and complete that Exuma International Airport,” he explained.

“When that becomes the hub we can now speak about connectivity, not just for traffic passenger traffic but also cargo, so we have a strategy in mind - creating more hubs and taking our message into new markets that they should come to the Bahamas.”

Phelan Ferguson, general manager for Latin America sales in the Ministry of Tourism, said his goal is to increase air traffic with that region but there are difficulties meeting the demand for outbound direct flights.

“When you’re looking at aviation coming into the country, the airlines are in the business of making money, so they’re looking also at the flights not only going into the country but also coming out. So they want traffic both ways,” said Mr Ferguson.

“My job is to generate tourism from Latin America. That’s from Mexico all the way down to Chile and Argentina. We can generate the demand for the people on flights to come in, but they need to have the equal numbers coming out. With a very small population, comparatively speaking, it’s difficult to generate that much coming out, so getting direct flights is not that easy.”

Mr Ferguson said the Latin American countries with potentially the highest demand for The Bahamas are Brazil, Mexico, Argentina and Colombia.

“We are focused on all of the countries in Latin America, but there are four in particular where we get the bulk of our business from. In order of importance, they would be Brazil, Mexico, Argentina and then, to a lesser extent, Colombia,” said Mr Ferguson.

“We are working with the travel trade there to generate awareness. Once people are aware of the options that are available in terms of vacationing in The Bahamas, awareness is the big thing. Once they’re aware they come and, once they put their toes in the sand, then they want to come back.”

Tracy Cooper, Bahamasair’s managing director, said Caribbean countries tend to have aviation legislation that benefits their national carriers as they are partially or fully government agencies. He added that Latin American countries tend towards legislation that can be “adversarial” to airlines, which could present a challenge.

“When you take into consideration different regions that ALTO has oversight for, you’d find that there’s probably a little bit more versatility in Latin America than the Caribbean,” said Mr Cooper.

“When you take into consideration that Bahamasair has a government component, so does Cayman Airways and Caribbean Airways. We tend to work more hand in hand with the governments, and they depend on us for advice from time to time on the aviation sector,

“With our counterparts in Latin America, it may not be just as seamless. They tend to have to be at arm’s length at times with their governments, and the mandates and the legislations and the rules that are being put forth may be one such that it is actually adversarial and, in the long run, may even be damaging.

“We hope that this is not the case. Certainly it’s not the case in The Bahamas and, for my Caribbean counterparts, typically it’s not the case either. We tend to have more harmonisation with our governments as related to rules and regulations.”