As host of the 20th ALTA AGM and Airline Leaders Forum this week, Bahamasair has itself a lot to celebrate.
Founded in 1973, the same year the commonwealth of the Bahamas won independence from the UK, the carrier currently operates four Boeing 737NG aircraft and six ATR turboprops. The airline flies to 18 destinations across the Bahamas, five in the USA (Orlando, West Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale, Miami and Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina) as well as to Haiti, Turks and Caicos, and Cuba.
Bahamasair is the country’s flag carrier and primarily owned by the government. As could be expected, its strategy goes hand-in-hand with the country’s tourism strategy and aspirations.
And the 2024 tourist figures are on track to exceed last year’s 9.6 million, which already was a record.
At the heart of the country’s air transport industry sits Bahamsair and its chief executive Tracy Cooper. His airline’s mission is two-fold: transportation of people and goods around the islands, as well as carrying foreigners to and from its famous beaches and reefs for sun-soaked holidays. Of the nation’s 700 islands and cays, only 30 to 40 are inhabited.
And the Bahamas’ strategic location north of Cuba lends itself to creating a network with Nassau at its centre.
“When we’re talking future expansion of the airline, there’s no doubt about it that we would like to be a hub for the Caribbean,” Cooper says. “In fact, we’d love to be a hub for beyond the Caribbean.”
That said, the airline is limited to its fleet of just 10 aircraft at the moment – four jets and six turboprops, but Cooper says expansion is in the plans.
“As we grow the fleet, we’re going to look to see how we could better increase connectivity within the Caribbean,” he says.
That is also what ALTA – the Latin American and Caribbean airline association – is looking to rectify. Travelling between the island nations sprinkled across the Caribbean Sea currently can be a whole-day affair, with many carriers’ connections leading through Miami or Fort Lauderdale on the North American mainland. Making travel through the Caribbean easier will be a boon to the entire industry.
Bahamasair is driving a strategy of partnerships.
“We are aggressively pursuing interlining [agreements] with other Caribbean carriers,” Cooper says, so that Bahamasair can expand its reach through those entities. These candidates include Haiti’s Sunrise Airways, Cayman Airways, Surinam Airways, and Caribbean Airlines, headquartered in Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica.
But Cooper’s ambitions stretch beyond Bahamian neighbours. Latin America is also on his list of to-dos, he says, and he keeps an eye on the rest of the world, too.
REACHING OUT
“We fly into Miami, Orlando and Fort Lauderdale. All of Latin America flies into Miami, so we are looking to see how we can have tentacles to Central and South America. When you look at Orlando, you’re talking about all of the Middle Eastern and European airlines that are flying there. And when you talk about Fort Lauderdale, you have all [US] domestic carriers like Sun Country and Spirit that fly there. So we are reaching out to them.
“Obviously, we can’t do it all at one time, but we’ve set ourselves a mandate to do about four or five interlining [agreements] per year,” he says.
The Bahamas are, of course, also limited by their infrastructure. While doubling business would be a fantastic aspirational goal, Cooper says that is unrealistic.
“There are other aspects to consider in this tourist destination. There have got to be enough hotel rooms and the like, so we’re working within the margins that are permitted.”
At some time periods in the past two years the country’s accommodations were completely booked out, he adds. “We’re encouraged that we can see that some expansion in the hotel availabilities, some new properties are going up, so possibly 10% [annual] growth would be within the margin of which we think the infrastructure can be sustained.”
With the Bahamas hosting this year’s ALTA meeting, Cooper hopes that the country can profit from the additional exposure to Latin American airlines and tourists. The country’s ministry of tourism is placing a great deal of its focus on the continent, as it hopes to attract more business from an increasingly wealthy middle class searching for new holiday destinations.
“We are looking, I would say, with interest, to see where would be a suitable location that can we ourselves interline directly in Latin America – hopefully we can find a sweet spot that will allow us to do that.
“We are also talking to the Latin American carriers, flying heavily into the Dominican Republic and into Cuba, which are virtually flying over our heads. So we are looking at both from what Bahamasair can do, and how we can tie it into the strategy of our ministry of tourism.”
The airline’s fleet needs renewal too, Cooper says. The airline operates six ATRs (three of the ATR 42 model and three ATR 72s) for the island-to-island hops, and its four Boeing 737NGs – two of which are leased and two are owned. The jets are between 19 and 21 years old, according to Cirium fleets data.
“We are looking to see how we can expand the airline in the coming years, we are looking at possible new equipment on the jet side to upgrade, but we are being careful as to how we navigate that,” he says, casting a wary eye on Airbus’ current Pratt & Whitney engine inspection issue, which he calls “teething problems”, as well as Boeing’s well-documented challenges with its 737 Max models.
“We are looking at all the narrowbodies within the 130-160 seat range,” he adds. That would include not only Boeing and Airbus types, but the 146-seat Embraer E195-E2 would also fit squarely into that specification.
In the meantime, as hurricane season winds down and travellers from the increasingly autumnal northern hemisphere begin making their way to the Caribbean to escape the dark and cold, Cooper continues to lead the small flag carrier into a promising future.
His advice to ALTA guests, and others who might consider a stopover or an entire holiday? The country’s tourism promotion slogan at the end of the last century still sums it up well, he says.
“It’s always better in the Bahamas.”