BVI News

Unfair burden | Inter-Island Airport Development Fee to be disbanded — Premier

Residents of Virgin Gorda and Anegada travelling to Tortola through the TB Lettsome International Airport may no longer be required to pay the Inter-Island Airport Development Fee.

Describing it as an unfair burden, Premier Andrew Fahie said management of the BVI Airports Authority (BVIAA) made the proposal recently.

“The BVIAA board has looked at the $5 Inter-Island Airport Development Fee that is charged to persons travelling from Anegada and Virgin Gorda to Tortola. It is the view of the Board that this fee places an unfair and unnecessary burden on our sister-islanders who have no choice but to travel to Tortola in order to conduct business, shopping, and so forth,” Premier Fahie said.

Fahie, who was delivering remarks at Tuesday’s sitting of the House of Assembly, added: “The Board proposes to disband this fee to Anegadians and Virgin Gordians.”

“[While the fee] may not be much, it is our way of saying to our sister-islanders that we recognise the challenges they face, and we appreciate them,” the Premier further said.

In a follow-up statement to BVI News on Tuesday, Fahie said the fee is currently under review “with the intent to have it disbanded”.

This effectively means that it is not yet in effect and travellers from these two islands are still required to pay.

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6 Comments

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  1. And says:

    By the same token why should I pay all of $15.00 departure tax for an eight year old child with belongership when departing the BVI by boat? Are we so desperate?

    Like 10
    Dislike 1
    • @And says:

      It is an unfair fee for children and the increase from $10 to $15 within itself unjust because we have yet to see any proper development of the port. The crap fix they did after the hurricane is an embarrassment …

      BVI is just getting to expensive to live in and too expensive to travel to while the development of the country is in a negative direction.

      Like 10
  2. Forward Ever/Backward never says:

    My a**. Why should people pay a fee to travel between islands comprising the Virgin Islands? $15 to travel from BVI to St. Thomas. $10 from St. Thomas to BVI. Btw, who get the monies collected traveling from St. Thomas to BVI? The senator in charge of ports in St. Thomas don’t know. The cashiers for the various ferries who collect the money don’t know. If nobody knows where the money goes, why are the traveling public paying $10 when traveling from St. Thomas to Tortola? Anyone knows?

  3. Me says:

    I’m a.Virgin Gordian &I must say it get me in a state to be refered to as sister island just quit that s**t.Tortola don’t breast feed VG.For ur info. V.G once held the capital of the BVI& up to this day VG has always been the bread winner of the BVI.Get rid of this name sister island c**p.We deserve me that refering to us as.such
    We’ll always get the crumbs that.fall off the table

    Like 5
    Dislike 6
  4. Retired says:

    Please scrap the entire Airport Development Fee for all international and domestic flights. Thank you!!

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