According to Airport Authority Acting General Manager Idris Reid, the runway repairs are expected to comprise a significant part of the overall improvement cost at NIA.
Prime Minister Perry Christie has said that repairs to the main runway, which had earlier been estimated at about $20 million, would actually cost closer to $40 million.
Mr. Reid said in an interview with the Bahama Journal that, “Improving the runways is the first aspect of the development (at NIA) because without runways you have no airport. We’re going to fix the runways and that should begin by late April or the early part of May.”
Mr. Reid pointed out that the repairs are expected to get underway even before a new management company is appointed to oversee operation of the airport.
Following months of repeated calls by tourism and hotel industry officials for needed repairs to be carried out at the country’s main gateway, the Airport Authority this week began running advertisements inviting proposals from companies interested in managing NIA.
The Request for Proposals, Mr. Reid said, is aimed at selecting a highly specialised and technical company, which would be capable of overseeing management of the many diverse operations at the airport.
According to the Acting General Manager, the successful candidate would have responsibility for the administration, operation and continued upgrade of NIA.
He pointed out, however, that the Airport Authority will retain responsibility for security functions at the airport.
“Airport operations are extremely specialist so we are being very careful to look at only those companies that have a very good record in this kind of work,” Mr. Reid said.
“What we are looking for are companies with not only management expertise, because there is also a developmental dimension as far as Nassau International is concerned.
Operation, management and development will all go hand in hand. Based on that we are saying to companies that in addition to the management and operations there is a developmental process that you need to be capable of dealing with.”
Mr. Reid said following completion of the runways upgrade, the second phase of development – improving NIA’s terminals – will commence.
He pointed out that authorities expect to select the successful management company by June 1, 2004.
Increasing calls for the government to effect significant improvements at NIA came to a head last year when Kerzner International Chairman Sol Kerzner sought to make the upgrade a prerequisite to the commencement of the $600 million Atlantis Phase III development.
“I’ve been in discussion with the Prime Minister, the Minister of Tourism and various other ministers and I’m sure they’re tired of me saying it, but it has to be said,” said Mr. Kerzner last September at the groundbreaking for Phase III.
“We have a wonderful destination and wonderful people, but we have about the worst airport in the world. And this is not a new development, but this is something that existed from since we first got here.”
Just recently, Tourism Director General Vincent Vanderpool-Wallace also highlighted the need for immediate renovations at NIA and other airports throughout the country.
Mr. Vanderpool-Wallace’s comments came while speaking about the projected increase in visitor arrivals, which is expected to come with improved group travel business to this country, when a convention tax exemption agreement between The Bahamas and the United States comes into effect in January 2006.
“All of this is what makes it imperative that we upgrade the quality of the airports because you have large [numbers] of people coming in with group movements, which require a much, much better facility at Nassau International Airport and Grand Bahama International Airport, in particular,” he said.
Darrin Culmer, The Bahama Journal
