(Eleuthera, Bahamas) – Saturday, December 26th, 2015 marked the second record breaking day in 2015 for visitor arrivals at the North Eleuthera airport, with 477 foreign visitors and 93 planes landing at the airport within the one day. Important to note is that these visitor statistics do not include Bahamian residents travelling into the airport or permanent residents returning to the Bahamas, nor foreign visitors arriving on domestic flights, as their entry into the country would have already been recorded at their original entry port – most often New Providence.
This heightened activity at the North Eleuthera airport extended into Sunday, December 27th, making the Christmas holiday weekend in The Eleutheras a very robust one for arrivals to the island, with another 311 foreign visitor arrivals and 80 domestic and international flights landing on Sunday. This also coming on the heels of Delta Airlines, officially returning flights into The Eleutheras one week earlier, on December 19th.
This robust Christmas travel surpassed the visitor record set during the first quarter of 2015, on March 14th, during the Spring Break season, when the small and outdated North Eleuthera airport saw a record breaking 114 flights land on that day with 417 foreign visitors arrivals.
Sentiments within North Eleuthera stress the need for the promised new airport terminal and runway, within the current budget period, which has been spoken about by both Prime Minister Hon. Perry Christie, as well as Minister of Transport and Aviation, Hon. Glenys Hanna-Martin. Several people have expressed the hope of seeing the new airport soon come to fruition. In addition to alleviating “apron congestion”, the airport could spark entrepreneurial growth if it were to become a reality, commented a stakeholder in the industry.
On May 21st, 2015, while speaking at the 3rd Annual Eleuthera Business Outlook, Prime Minister Christie had commented on his government’s intentions for this airport, stating, “The Government, within the next budget cycle, will carry out airport upgrades in Eleuthera to IATA standards and advance construction of the mini hospital here in Central Eleuthera. The Ministry of Tourism and the Ministry of Transport and Aviation will provide support in partnership with Eleuthera’s resort development partners to ensure that there is air travel access and the satisfactory delivery and facilitation of passengers to international standards.”
Among the many visitors headed to Harbour Island via the airport over the weekend were the likes of golf’s Greg Norman, and movie star Denzel Washington.
The parking areas of the airport aprons were fully packed over the weekend with the airport congested at some points and officials expect much of the same as the new year approaches. Minister Hanna- Martin, issued a press release on Sunday calling for the general public to anticipate unavoidable delays and to exercise patience and understanding with the situation.
The release read:
This weekend has proven to be an especially busy period for both commercial and general aviation traffic within The Bahamas. In particular Abaco and North Eleuthera have seen large volumes of international air traffic which might possibly be unprecedented to date.
It is expected that this trend will continue throughout the country over the next several days and while this is good news for our national economy this will, however, lead to delays for passengers.
I ask that the traveling public anticipate these unavoidable delays and exercise patience and understanding .
I wish to take this opportunity to thank and commend the officers in the Air Traffic Management division of the Department of Civil Aviation for their hard work and commitment during this period in ensuring the safe and efficient management and control of air traffic services within The Bahamas . And I thank all concerned for their forbearance.
