NASSAU, BAHAMAS – Bahamasair’s engine repair turnaround time for its ATR fleet has surged to 150 days due to supply chain issues with the Canadian manufacturer, a delay that has grounded two planes and disrupted Family Island services, according to Managing Director Tracy Cooper.
While speaking at the Long Island Business Outlook on Thursday, Cooper said: “We had something happen this year we had not seen in the past. The manufacturer of the ATR engine is called Pratt & Whitney Canada, and they have been having some supply chain issues. Typically, we would send our engines to them for repairs, and the return time in the past used to be 45-60 days. Right now, due to supply chain issues, their turnaround time is now 150 days. The issue with that is it is causing a backlog in the industry and causing some of us to have to put airplanes on the ground. Bahamasair has had to almost live with one airplane on the ground for this whole year, and then from August until now, there has been a second airplane on the ground simply waiting for engines we cannot get on the market. That has hampered our ability to service the islands as we see fit. Normally, Long Island would have an airplane all by itself. We have had to do some combining.”
Cooper added: “It’s been really a bit of a struggle. The good news is our strategic business plan always called for the addition of an ATR airplane. We were not meeting the demand when charters were requested; we could not fulfill all of them. I can say we are at the tail end of that, and we should have that in another two to three weeks. With that, we can do some things going into the change of schedule in January. At that time, Long Island will return to having dedicated flights out of Nassau five days a week, with the exception of Wednesday and Saturday, which it will still share with San Salvador.”
Cooper revealed that from January to the end of October, Bahamasair brought in roughly 19,100 passengers to Long Island, a combination of both tourists and residents. By comparison, the airline brought in 16,800 passengers during the same period last year, representing a 12 percent increase.
Cooper went on to explain that the number could have been higher but was limited by regulations regarding the length of the airport’s runways. “The reality is that the runway here is still 4,000 feet. Typically, most of the runways around the Bahamas are 5,500 feet.
“The reality is that the aircraft can take off with a full load of passengers and bags at Stella Maris, but by regulation, the maximum we can carry is 38 passengers. That’s if we bring the 50 or 70 seaters. It’s the same limitations because of the distance of the runway and impediments of the runway. We have 12 seats that will always be unoccupied, and multiply that by 365 days—that’s roughly 4,300 seats a year we cannot service for Long Island. We could do a little better with what we have, but there are some impediments,” said Cooper.
