Beef Island Airport to become regional hub — Tourism Minister
A strategic planning and visioning exercise is expected to be initiated shortly to position the Terrance B Lettsome International Airport as a leading airport and eventually a hub in the Caribbean.
This is according to Premier Andrew Fahie, who made the announcement at a press conference recently.
To this end, the Premier said reviews will be undertaken for the development of the airport’s master plan and land-use plan to support the development of the airport.
He said this will be inclusive of the extension of the runway and associated facilities.
According to Premier Fahie, who also serves as the BVI‘s Minister of Tourism, under the leadership of the new Managing Director of the BVI Airports Authority, Kurt Menal, that entity has already begun work to improve the guest experience to align the airport with the expectations of the BVI’s airport users.
He said work is also being done to compliment the Virgin Islands as a top tourist destination to raise the regional and international profile of the airport and to boost its revenue generation capabilities.
The Premier said that the process for streamlining the organisational structure of the airport for efficiency and effectiveness has already begun, even as the Managing Director’s organisation assessment diagnosis is underway.
All of this, he added, is in addition to a comprehensive beautification and maintenance exercise which has already begun.
“The passenger journey,” Premier Fahie said, “is re-being redesigned to improve the flow and passenger comfort and the process has been started to introduce a duty-free store at the airport.”
The Premier further revealed that as part of the overall rebranding exercise, a fully functioning customer service department has been established and the Airports Authority has partnered with the BVI Tourist Board to rebrand its taxi dispatch service.
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Build an international airport on Anegada, with transfers to Tortola. Much cheaper, and keep the present airports at beef island and VG.
I think Andrew meant that the BVI would be a hub for the BVI region 🙂 – Cleary Beef Island won’t ever be a hub for any region that includes the huge international airports at SJU or SXM, or even the slightly smaller (but much bigger than anything that will fit onto Beef Island) at STT and STX. Uncle Ralph announced that Beef Island was the biggest and best in the region when the new building was opened – he was presumably also referring to the BVI region and not including SJU, SXM, STT or STX.
Anegada is the obvious choice but it will require proper infrastructure, hotels, restaurants, accommodation for workers, marinas, shops etc – look at how it worked in Turks.
The Premier and his ultra expensive visions needs to go sit down. You can not fix the country and you are trying this? Have you been to Antigua or San Juan? They have roads, infrastructure and space!
Can we stop trying to be something we are not and work on fixing what we are so our product is 100%.
Stop with all the BS captial using ideas for at least 2 years until our sewage system is fixed and our roads are done.
Build from the inside. Build better foundations for the country and it will florish.
a truer word written, my friend.
You cannot build a tower block on a crumbling foundation.
What a load of nothing. Why would an airport that size need a customer service department? If you look at the direction airports are now taking, they are slowly becoming malls, thereby placing the onus to provide a good customer experience on the various shops and the airlines.
Sorry but there is nothing innovative or forward thinking about initiatives disclosed. WOW.
So the proposal is to have four major ‘hub’ airports in a 100 mile radius of the BVI? St Maarten, St Thomas, San Juan, (and now BVI)? Genius!
Just words and hot air …
Beef will never be a hub. St Thomas and St Martin are hubs.
we will not get direct flights of much size in the next 5 years and by then air travel may very well look completely different.
fix schools and infrastructure instead of spending 2-400 million on airport
STX has 10,000 plus foot runway! And your going to be a hub??????
I don’t think Andrew know what a hub is.
Plans never mention that in order to accommodate passengers for early flights or missed flights will need a hotel, then more stores, then re-designing Trellis Bay, then turning that hotel into a resort, then adding the golf course, then having visitors spill over to Long Bay Beach, and never a study of jet noise over east end and surroundings. jets are LOUD over west end descending to the airport. I would hate to hear what they are like right next door. Nor are there any considerations of surrounding environments, mangroves etc for climate change. This is all about ego and not practicality.
Try regional embarrassment, not hub.
How the Minister for tourist board doesn’t know anything about tourism? Well neither does the Jr Minister or Chairman or Director or any Board member so that is why he can talk this pistarckle! BVI is a spoke and can never be a hub, when our hubs are St. Maarten for French and European traffic, USVI and Rico for USA traffic and Antigua for British traffic. A hub is a central airport used to feed other airports (spokes). Are we saying that we want people to use BVI as a transit point for tourists to travel on elsewhere? So you don’t want your tourists to stop and stay in BVI? It is so sad this government is clueless about the areas they are supposed to be in charge of.
With all our neighboring territories already ahead of their game with direct access I wondering a hub for whom?
Hub for VG JVD AGA.
Sounds like someone about to get paid a contract for ‘consultation’ when everyone in the BVI can tell you this is nonsense for free.
What is it with all these BIG words. Did you just hear ‘Regional Hub’ so you are trying to use it in a sentence every hour!?
Why would Beef Island be a Regional Hub for anywhere but the BVI?? The nutty testing, taxing and procedures (by rude immigration officers) make this joint a place to avoid unless you are going to the BVI.
There are still many more guests coming to the BVI through St Thomas. It costs about 1/2 price vs EIS…that is not something that is going to change just because you keep saying “Regional Hub” over and over again!
Huh? This mek sense?
After the olympics we were told we were getting Olympic swimming pools, now a regional hub.. what next? Perhaps we will become world leading car drivers with our drag racing site!
Can we just have decent roads schools sewerage water internet oh and perhaps a government that does things for us not themselves. Just another idea..
Election next week before we forget that he said Regional Hub. This is called blowing smoke up our butts, or gaslighting. More smoke than even the dump pumps out. Either there is a misunderstanding about the meaning of “regional” and domestic has now become regional, or it’s as most people know, these guys don’t know thing one about tourism. Regional is a joke. So many real regional airports are already experiencing larger aircraft coming from U.S. mainland and Europe, i.e., St. Kitts, Antigua, Barbados in addition to those already mentioned. Then after we bring tourists here we are going to drive them over the roads destroyed since the construction of the airport/buildings 20 years ago when we were promised they would be fixed after the construction. That never happened and then Irma ripped up the rest and much of that still isn’t fixed. Like how we bring tourists through town off cruise ships and walk them past the QE2 Park ghut,which smells like you are going to get some serious disease, on their way to nothing to be seen. This morning one of the cruise ship bike riders hit a hole in Sea Cows Bay, took a spill and opened a hole in his face. But it would be useless to try to tell anyone any of that and expect them to take it in and do something meaningful because we’re not voting for that, we are going to vote for the Regional Airport after the $7 million airline that we voted for has folded. We can’t get any of that $7M back and whatever crony is going to get rich off the Regional Airport study won’t give us any of that back either. And they will pay for it out of the Social Security “grant”. Every year we pay more into the Social Security scheme hoping to get a few dollars at 65. Yeah right. Just like the U.S.V.I. had to save their retirement scheme from bankruptcy, we will go straight down that road. If we think we suffering now we haven’t seen anything yet. Guess I should go read the Hon. Natalio’s essay on slavery. Stay woke and stop voting for smoke.
Virgin Gorda been building an olympic pool for about 20 years and they have Branson and all the other mega millionaires. Children have to be highly motivated with highly motivated parents just to learn to read and write. We can’t get them edjamacated unless they are. When you think we going to get an olympic pool? Chile please. Reel and come again.