Business View Caribbean | July 2019

35 BUSINESS VIEW CARIBBEAN JULY 2019 Increasing passenger throughput is high on the to-do list because, while the theoretical airport capacity is 1.5 million per year, the actual capacity could be 2.5 million. At 860,000 it’s obvious the terminal is grossly underutilized. That being said, one of the challenges is to get more tourists to Antigua and therefore more passengers through the building. In that regard, ABAA has partnered to a certain extent with the Antigua and Barbuda Tourism Authority to improve the service, and the number of passengers has increased. They jointly take part in the Routes Aviation conference to sell the island, the tourism product, and the airport to airlines and tour operators from around the world. Another opportunity ABAA is trying to capitalize on is the number of retail operations in the terminal building. It is satisfactory now, but could definitely improve the offerings available to passengers. The commercial department, under the purview of ABAA’s finance department, has approached different entities in an effort to bring in more services for the concession program. RFP requests have gone out both locally and internationally – if the company is a good fit, the Authority will give them the space to do their build-out. Contracts are usually from five to ten years because companies invest a great deal of money in their infrastructure and product and need that long-term period to get a good return on investment. VCBIA is a major employer in Antigua with a staff of 330 people. In addition, on the service side, there are approximately three times as many workers for the other stakeholders: airline companies, immigration, and customs that support a large number of employees. The future goal of VC Bird International is to become the airport of choice to the Eastern Caribbean – differentiating itself from other airports in the region by changing the culture, and significantly improving customer service delivery. Along with the total rollout of the Terminal Reuse Plan, ABAA intends to do some work on the runway, the apron and, hopefully, introduce more passenger loading bridges from the current three to anywhere from seven to thirteen. VC B I RD INTERNAT IONAL A I RPORT