By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

Bahamian pilots will today challenge a controversial aviation exam before the Supreme Court amid airline concerns that the test may impact operations and disrupt planned service expansion.

Drexel Munroe, a pilot and member of the Bahamas Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (BAOPA), told Tribune Business its application for an injunction and permission to launch Judicial Review proceedings against the Civil Aviation Authority of The Bahamas (CAAB) over the air law exam it is mandating all pilots must take and pass is set to be heard at 11am.

While providing few specifics, other than that the hearing is before Justice Leif Farquharson, he voiced confidence that the Bahamian aviation industry “will have closure one way or another” over an exam that previously raised fears of a pilot shortage until industry regulators extended the deadline to take and pass it from January 31, 2025, to end-June 2025.

“I can tell you that the hearing for the injunction will be heard on Monday morning,” Mr Munroe told this newspaper. “The lawyer that we hired will present our case and they will come with their case. It’s [the exam] going to affect the life of every pilot and, to that extent, it may even affect companies. It’s not just the pilots; this is a ripple effect.”

That impact was confirmed by Anthony Hamilton, the Bahamas Association of Air Transport Operators president and head of administration at Southern Air, who said some of the carrier’s pilots were struggling to pass the air law exam. And this, in turn, was impacting its plans to introduce new equipment to its operations.

“Southern Air Charter Company is challenged with some of its pilots,” he disclosed. “The company is bringing some new equipment on-stream and, before we introduce it, licensing it to meet the qualifications of the Bahamian authorities has presented a difficulty.

“One of the pilots failed it twice. That’s a foreign pilot. But if the Bahamian pilots are also failing the exam, it begs the question. This is a very perplexing situation. I mean, we’ve made some mistakes before with ‘cut and paste’ and other things with regard to the administration for the industry. This warrants a deeper dive.”

The exam has been much-criticised by Bahamian pilots and other industry operators for lacking relevance to this nation’s aviation environment, while many have complained about an inability to source study guides and inadequate time to prepare. There were fears that failures may leave Bahamian carriers short of pilots, disrupting flight schedules and the inter-island connectivity relied upon by residents, tourism and commerce.

Devard Francis, the Civil Aviation Authority of The Bahamas chairman, told Tribune Business last month that the regulator had extended the deadline to take and pass the air law exam by five months to June 30, 2025, in response to industry concerns that pilots lacked the time and required study materials to properly prepare.  

The move, implemented to ease fears that a pilot shortage may result if too few passed the exam and were thus unable to renew their Bahamian licences, has provided some breathing space for the industry. Mr Hamilton said it had brought “a measure of relief” for the sector, with Civil Aviation turning Mr Francis’ pledge into action the very next day.

A January 15, 2025, note sent by Alexander Ferguson, the Civil Aviation Authority of The Bahamas’ director-general, to all pilots and operators licensed under the Civil Aviation Act 2021 confirmed the exam deadline has been pushed back to end-June but asserted that taking - and passing - it are “non-negotiable”.

“To-date, of the airmen that have sat the applicable Civil Aviation Authority of The Bahamas air law examination, 70 percent have passed,” Mr Ferguson wrote in a note seen by Tribune Business. “There remains a number of airmen who have yet to register and/or sit and pass the applicable air law examination.

“For pilots, a command of air law is non-negotiable given their responsibility for the safety of crew and passengers alike. Air law is a set of rules that govern the use of airspace and aviation activities. It applies to both national and international levels. An air law exam is an assessment of the knowledge of the rules and regulations that govern air travel and air space. These exams are often required for airmen to obtain or renew their licences.”

Mr Munroe, though, argued: “Nobody is running from having to take an exam, but if we take it it must make sense for us. If we have to have it, what happens to the qualification we have to go through before?” He explained he was referring to those Bahamian pilots who returned home with a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) licence and then had to satisfy questions presented to them by a local examiner.

Suggesting the air law exam threatens to undermine, and cut across, that system, Mr Munroe added: “What happened to that? Are you saying that the persons who took that are not qualified or the exam was flawed/ No, no, no. I think someone got above themselves, didn’t think the process through, didn’t say a word and then just pushed the process down our throat. That happens a lot in The Bahamas.

“Nobody thinks these things through. You’re telling us to write a European exam but all our training is done in the US. It’s just asinine, and I would tell them that if they sat with us. The Association, our position, our view on it is that we don’t think the exam is necessary. I can’t think of any country in the world telling its pilots to write an exam or lose their licence. Let the chips fall where they may.”

Mornel Brown, the Association’s president, could not be reached for comment before press time last night, but in a recent interview with this newspaper he confirmed it had been taking legal advice over The Bahamas air law exam. “I can’t really speak further to that. We’re taking legal advice on that so I can’t have any further discussions on it,” he said.

Still, confirming that the deadline to take The Bahamas air law exam has been extended, Mr Brown added that the Civil Aviation Authority has made “no concessions or changes” to the structure or content of the test, or allowed it to be ‘open book’ in common with the equivalent for aviation mechanics.

“It gives you more time to source the proper study materials,” he said of the extension. “But, according to their laws and regulations, if you fail the exam more than three times’ you have to go through an appropriate ATO (Air Transport Organisation) training facility but there is no such facility here. You want to take away the licence but there is no training facility here?”

Aviation industry sources had asserted that the air law exam questions appear to have been ‘copied and pasted’ from a European study guide, and bore little resemblance to the conditions and practices that will be encountered in The Bahamas.

They had also encountered difficulties in sourcing study guides and materials and, while not objecting to the exam as a concept, said the contents do not align with what was promised. One, while acknowledging that they shared his concerns about the nature of the questions being asked, said those relating to locations such as London’s Heathrow airport were still relevant because “your pilot’s licence doesn’t limit you to flying in The Bahamas alone”.

However, they challenged why questions on issues such as visual flight rules (VFR) when flying at night were included given that night flying “was not allowed in The Bahamas”. 

Another aviation contact said they were forced to have the study guides shipped to The Bahamas from the UK. “It’s a Bahamas air law exam so it should be on Bahamian air law,” they said. “This test is not based on Bahamas air law, but is based on questions from the EASA test.” The source also pointed out that the terminology and phraseology are different from what Bahamian pilots are used to.