A top American airline industry executive is advising Barbados to upgrade certain facilities at the Grantley Adams International Airport.
Chief executive officer of JetBlue Airways, Dave Barger, wants to see the Immigration and Customs process at the airport “further staffed to allow for a more seamless entrance experience for the large volume of passengers arriving at the airport”.
“You want to ensure that people go through those processes in a 30-minute manner.”
Barger also saw the need to expand eating facilities and retail shops at the airport, to cash in on revenue from the heavy flow of traffic departing the airport.
The JetBlue CEO, along with top executives from his company, made a whirlwind stop in Barbados yesterday as part of a continuing tour to some of the 63 locations to which JetBlue currently flies,
in honour of the airline’s tenth anniversary.
The Barbados service was inaugurated just over one year ago.
Following meetings with local tourism officials and JetBlue staff and management here, the CEO told the Weekend Nation “We are pleased with our first year and we are looking at year two.”
Jetblue currently operates a daily flight of a 150-seater Airbus A320m from New York to Barbados, and Barger said yesterday the loads had been above 80 per cent , with the bulk of traffic originating in the American market.
He added however, with 15 per cent of the business originatingin Barbados,
“I think I would like to see that more like 30 per cent”. He is optimistic this will happen “over time” and plans to step up marketing activities locally.
“We are optimistic in a major way. We are looking at additional service between New York and Barbados during the peak holiday period and summertime”, the JetBlue official said. (GC)
