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by pltm
(PLTM) - BVI Airways is claiming that the Government's premature announcement of the preferred bidder for the TB Lettsome International Airport expansion project, affected the airline.
"The Government’s ill-timed announcement of the contract award to lengthen the runway at Beef Island, at an estimated cost of $155 million, made it much more difficult for BVIA to raise private funding," according to the airline.
The airline, in an open letter to the people of the BVI yesterday, July 18, went on to state, "The extended runway, and the promise of luring large US based airline carriers, would obviously pose a serious threat to BVI Airways business model and undermine our collective investment."
According to the airline, this has been a material adverse development to overcome.
Government in December 2016, announced that China Communications Construction Company (CCCC) was selected as the preferred bidder to carry out the airport expansion. However, the airport project appears to be have been shelved.
BVI Airways has been forced to lay off all its flight crew, indicating that it is in need of more funds. It also raised the issue of the airport not being ready to handle the increased passengers.
Expanding on the issue at the airport at Beef Island, the airline stated that if the issues are not addressed, passengers will be expected to wait in line for 2 hours to get through security and immigration.
"This would be disastrous. The current system is antiquated and barely works for low density flights."
It stated that there was a clear understanding from the onset that this needed to be corrected and better training of personnel provided prior to their launch of service.
The airline indicated that it conceived and developed a business plan to solve the BVI’s air access problem, pointing out that building an airline is a complex process.
"There are significant regulatory processes involved beginning with our UK based regulator, followed by the US DOT, FAA and DHS. There are also significant costs involved such as hiring and training flight crew, acquiring aircraft, maintenance personnel, parts, facilities, ground handling, station personnel, ticketing and reservations, to name just a few, and in our case, in multiple locations (BVI and US)." It noted that this is one of a series of challenges BVI Airways has faced, and lamented that the regulatory process also took much longer than all parties expected, and has put a significant strain on the company's finances.
