Sounds like the "surprise" LIAT management expressed at LIALPA after negotiating a one-year contract for ten years and the pilots eventually walked out there, too.
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It never ceases to amaze me that rather than give an employee group a reasonable raise, today's management - almost any management anywhere - would rather blow a thousand times that much (or more) on industrial action (not to mention the loss of customer good will, as has happened at liat).
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liat not only effectively cut their pilots pay by delaying any resolution of raises by ten years (TWICE, the first time in +8% inflation territory), but in the "sick-out" that followed the airline lost literally hundreds of millions of US dollars in lost revenue, cancelled flights and elevated customer dissatisfaction.
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BahamasAir management is now doing the same thing LIAT management did, too - "amazement" that such a thing should happen, "confusion" and "no idea why", and easing the blame onto the pilots rather than have anyone recognise their own incompetence at managing their employees and negotiating agreements and employee contracts.
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Of course, now that the crapola has hit the fanola, we will see more pressure from the government to privatise or close BahamasAir... and if that happens the current inept and incompetent management will find themselves out on the street. And - given their (lack of) performance negotiating with the pilots - I am sure it could not happen to a nicer bunch of "people".
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Come on. Mr. Davis, if Bahamasair is no longer an essential service then put your money where your big mouth is and shut the airline down. If you are so brave to lambaste the pilots in the Press, let's see you follow through on your threats. Or is that all just hot air to impress your constituents while you actually do nothing??
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Blah blah blah is 100% right. Time to PUT UP or SHUT UP.

My professional advice is to depend on and continue with the Dash-8s. They have taken a heavier pounding in LIAT since about 1985 and are still good solid workhorses with extra-ordinary performance. My pilot friernds at LIAT tell me the interiors of the brand new ATRs they are changing to are already becoming tattered, and Caribbean Airlines may still have engineers based in Trinidad just to keep theirs flying. The Dash-8 is a solid, reliable aircraft - and there is no aorcraft in the world that does not break down at some pouint opr other, after all they are only machines and parts do wear out.
The atr liat picked up will also NOT save them on fuel - they use the same amount as the Dash-8 - and in fact the US$200 million price tag plus the US$1.6 million a month they have to pay in leases is expected to kill that airline after a 57-year run because the shareholder countries are themselves broke now from incompetent governance. Your first priority at BahamasAIr is to ensure that incompetence does not take over the airline like it has done at LIAT, from the highest politicians to the bottom of middle management.

Presumably either the international 200-mile exclusion zone of the USA is more important than and swallows that of the Bahamas, or st some point the Bahamas gave up the airspace control to the US because it would have been cheaper for the Bahamas that way.

I do know that Bahamas ATC controls and handles the lower levels over the islands - I have flown through there doing ferry flights and landed locally for fuel.

Most eastern Caribbean islands control their own airspace up to 20,000 feet (some are lower), and the Piarco FIR handles everything above that - but this would be impractical in the Bahamas with such close proximity to the mainland.

The DEA would have had their bases and flight anyway in international anti-drug cooperation - the same thing happens with both air a sea coordination as far down as Trinidad and the Grenadines.

Comments suggest that the CEO is not an unusual type of Boss in the Caribbean... one who treats his employees as menial servants not worthy of self-improvement or universal respect.

Other CEOs and management teams in the region have done the same and, like Mr. Butler, have come away burned for more than treating the employees with respect would have cost.

That the pilots told him they had no issues are Mr. Butler's words... that need not necessarily be true. Mr. Butler himself said the pilots had issues, yet he behaves as through he is the wronged party.

SkyBahamas lost $123,000 in one weekend... and he cannot by law fire anyone (the pilots were covered by legal doctors' notes). Did the pilots really want so much? A pay raise, perhaps? $200 a month for 20 pilots would have been $48,000... for some managers that's just too much to pay for harmony.

The managers of my former employer, LIAT, in [b]TWO[/b] instances kept contract negotiations going for a full ten years, and in [b]BOTH[/b] instances were only brought to a timely agreement by massive sick-outs, closing down the airline's 100+ departures a day for a couple of days.

In LIAT's case, there were TWO managers and TWO senior pilots taken away from their main line of work several times a week, week after week, month after month, year after year - for at least ten years. Each sick-out cost LIAT some 250 million dollars, the negotiating teams cost LIAT another huge loss - the full-salary time of senior managers and pilots who should have been at work. Add in the loss of good will from their passengers and the actual numbers probably approach a Billion (US) dollars.

Mr. Butler's lamented $123,000 is probably a quick-draw, conservative number to make the pilots think they have not made much of a dent... but SkyBahamas must count all of the damage done and be honest with themselves about their actual losses.

Earth to Butler, Earth to Butler, come in... and get with the program before you are either thrown out or the employees shut you down for good.