Airport re-opens after major clean-up

Following a complex and expansive clean-up operation, the Grantley Adams International Airport (GAIA) re-opened for business at 6 p.m., Friday.

The airport had been closed for the past five days due to the large amount of ash dumped on its premises by the erupting La Soufriere volcano in St Vincent and the Grenadines.

During a press conference this afternoon, Minister of Tourism and International Transport Lisa Cummins said the cleaning spanned the entire area of the airport including its physical land space, airfields, internal facilities, IT areas, satellites and offshore locations.

She said even though there was still some Saharan dust and haze the volcanic ash that had been affecting visibility was gone.

Cummins said the clean-up was still not fully completed and an ongoing maintenance plan would be put in place.

She said communication had gone out to airlines informing them of the re-opening and five to six flights were expected tomorrow with an increase in the days after.

“What this means for Barbados is that commercial flights will begin, humanitarian flights servicing St Vincent and the Grenadines very importantly will also be in a position to use Barbados as a landing base to service the needs of those persons and our brothers and sisters in St Vincent and the Grenadines who will benefit significantly from having our airport re-opened,” she said.

Cummins confirmed that a British Airways (BA) flight from Heathrow airport had to be rerouted to Antigua today due to a mixup.

“As you would know there is a significant time difference between Barbados and the UK. The original time that went out for the re-opening of the airport was 2 p.m. and BA would normally have arrived at 2:30 p.m. – 3 p.m. so they were expecting the airport would have been re-opened at the time projected originally but not confirmed and so by midday we were still not in a position to complete the re-opening of the airport,” she explained.

Cummins said despite the setback of the closure of the airport, everything was still in place for the new protocols for vaccinated visitors to start on May 8.

She said while initially it was expected that travel to Barbados would be “lukewarm” especially from the Canadian and UK source markets, predictions were for an increase in activity towards the end of the year and early 2022.

“We actually spent the early part of this morning meeting with over 60 tour operators out of the markets and many of the major airlines going through the protocols, getting a sense of what the market has been saying in response to the protocols, what the demands and projections are looking like for the rest of the season.

“And we continue to receive feedback and we expect that between now and May 8 we will very much be in position, in collaboration with our partners both here in Barbados and our tour operators and airline partners abroad in new markets that we will very much be in a position to re-open Barbados to traffic for vaccinated passengers,” Cummins said.

“There are a combination of factors, both in the source markets based on their own domestic regulations set in place by their Governments and regulators and then, of course, the protocols here in Barbados and how those two things will twin. The period between May and June may be a little bit challenging when we’re talking about the Canadian and UK market but for the US market as they continue with an aggressive vaccination programme, as they continue to see reductions in the number of cases we will continue to see strong demand.

“The latter part of the year, the early part of 2022 is looking extremely strong. The demand is very strong but there is that latent uncertainty remaining around the May – June period, but then we see a moderate picking up in July – August through September,” she added.

The minister said Government was looking to new markets and to establish relationships with non-traditional partners as well as intra-regional travel to help revive the sector. (RB)