For the year ended June 2020, because of Dorian in late 2019 and three to four months of COVID-19 - March, April, May and June - we were down to around $60m. “Bahamasair, for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2019, had revenues of $92m. We’re talking tens of thousands versus millions. In terms of lost revenue, the numbers are staggering. “You take those destinations out of the mix, that’s eight of 16 destinations,” the Bahamasair chairman told Tribune Business. He added, though, that the present halt on flights to Miami, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach and Orlando in the US Providenciales in Turks & Caicos two destinations in Haiti and Havana had cost Bahamasair 50 percent of the locations it normally serves.
Mr Turnquest said this comparison was not exactly like-for-like, as Bahamasair was only currently flying domestically, whereas pre-COVID it was also on international routes. We’re down to 22 to 26 flights a week when we used to do that in a day. On Nassau to Freeport we had six passengers. “We combined Rock Sound and Georgetown on a 70-seater, and had 21 passengers total. “For example, we went into Marsh Harbour this morning, and I guess we had about 15 and brought back 21-22m, either on a 70-seater or 50-seater. “They’re still very, very low,” the Bahamasair chairman said of passenger numbers on the airline’s domestic flights. With memories still fresh about how the second domestic COVID-19 wave was sparked by Bahamians returning from travelling to Florida and elsewhere, Mr Turnquest said the national flag carrier simply lacked the “economies of scale” of an American Airlines to begin pre-flight virus testing of passengers before they boarded the plane.
With Bahamasair presently confined to servicing its domestic inter-island routes only, Mr Turnquest said it had yet to look at restarting its international flights into the US and other Caribbean destinations given the government’s continuing concerns over the rate at which COVID-19 infections are increasing on New Providence. He added that the airline had cut back its weekly number of flights “like 90 percent”, with the 22 to 26 presently scheduled equivalent to what it used to do per day prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Tommy Turnquest, giving a bleak near-term outlook for the national flag carrier, told Tribune Business that passenger numbers and load factors on its domestic routes are “dismal” with as few as six persons travelling on its service between Nassau and Freeport. Tribune Business “staggering” financial losses continue to mount, its chairman revealed yesterday, disclosing that revenues for its just-completed 2020 financial year were down $32m compared to 2019.
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