Business View Caribbean
5
vention – an amount which, according to Fraser, has
been reduced by half over the last ten years. “Each
year it gets cut more, until the Authority becomes com-
pletely self –sustaining,” he says. “So besides the sub-
vention, we do generate our own funds by way of a
departure tax, security fee, airport development fee,
landing fee – all the aviation-related fees.” Fraser adds
that he expects the Authority to pay its own way within
five or six years, but only after some extensive expan-
sion plans have been achieved.
“The principal reason for the ex-
pansion,” says Fraser, “is so that
we can have larger aircraft com-
ing to the BVI. Currently, we’ve
got about 4,900 feet – about
4,000 of that is available for
landing. With that type of length,
we can just get commercial air-
craft to Puerto Rico or anywhere
closer than that. We’re hoping to
have direct flights that will take
us, at least, to Miami and possi-
bly to New York and Montreal or
Ottawa. And for that, we recog-
nize that we’re going to be need-
ing at least 7,000 feet of runway.
So part of our expansion plan is
to increase the length of our run-
way. We also would, necessarily,
have to increase the capacity of
our terminal building for both ar-
riving passengers and also the
departure hall. We also are going
to be looking at increasing the
size of our apron, so we will be
able to park the bigger planes.”
Fraser points to BVI’s loss of
air traffic over the past several
years, as the reason it needs to expand its flight offer-
ings. “In 2007, when we had the recession, the airlift
numbers went down,” he states. “In addition, we had
American Eagle, which operated quite a number of
flights to San Juan with connections on to the rest of
the U.S. and elsewhere; they ceased their operations
in the Caribbean and that really affected our numbers,
as well. So, what we’re trying to do is get airlift back
up, hopefully, beyond where we were in 2006, which
was one of our peak years.”
