Government gets earful at airport meetings

At the start of the second of three public meetings held last week to discuss the government’s proposal to expand the Virgin Islands’ main airport, Clive Smith told attendees that he and other officials wanted to hear from them.

Mr. Smith, the BVI Airports Authority’s director of special projects, explained that the Nov. 27 meeting at Francis Lettsome Primary School was part of the process to complete a “strategic outline case,” the first part of which was completed earlier this year by consultant KPMG (BVI) Ltd.

“We want to listen, respond and have a civil dialogue as to where we’re going, why we’re going, etcetera,” he said.

Seconds later, Mr. Smith got his first question.

“The strategic case, has it been released to the public?” an attendee asked.

“No. That’s because it hasn’t been laid on [the table of] the House [of Assembly],” Mr. Smith replied.

A moment later, he added that the results of a public survey undertaken by the BVIAA earlier in the year indicated that “most people” support the idea of expanding the airport.

The same attendee’s hand shot up again.

“The results of that survey, have they been made available to the public?” he asked.

“No, sir,” Mr. Smith replied.

Pros and cons

During the East End session and another meeting the next night on Virgin Gorda, attendees asked multiple questions about the economic and environmental impacts of the expansion, with some making critical comments and others voicing support.

“We need an airport for national security reasons, number one,” Claude Skelton-Cline said during the East End meeting, recounting the difficulties that the VI encountered after the 2017 hurricanes when other transportation links were severed.

Another attendee added that the Covid-19 pandemic and related travel restrictions also showed the need for the VI to have more control over its air connections.

Expansion presentation

Also during the East End meeting, Mr. Smith gave a presentation about the proposal, similar versions of which were made during a Nov. 26 meeting at Elmore Stout High School and another meeting last Thursday at Virgin Gorda’s Catholic Community Centre.

Currently, the government is considering five options. Three would extend the 4,646-foot runway at Terrance B. Lettsome International Airport — to either 6,300, 6,500 or 7,000 feet — in order to offer more direct flights to the United States and possibly further abroad.

The fourth is the “do-minimum” option, which would merely expand the terminal and the airport’s apron. The fifth, the “do-nothing” option, would make no changes to the existing airport.

These fourth and fifth options, however, appear unlikely to be chosen given that Premier Natalio “Sowande” Wheatley has strongly advocated for the expansion and said he believes the VI has “passed the stage” of deciding whether or not the project should proceed.

No cost projections have been disclosed for the current proposals, although the project is widely expected to be the most expensive in VI history.

Bigger jets, more flights

The payoff to any expansion, officials say, will be direct fights with larger jets to mainland US cities.

The precise destinations and types of planes used will depend on the length of the extension, according to Jeffrey Seider, vice president of global advisory for Canadian consulting firm WSP Global, which is currently producing an update to the BVIAA’s master plan.

A 7,000-foot runway would allow for flights from Beef Island to Chicago, Houston and other destinations, while shorter expansions would have more limited options, Mr. Seider said.

Currently, the furthest commercial flight the airport accommodates is a direct connection to Miami aboard American Airlines’ Embraer E-175 jets, which carry around 80 passengers.

‘Flushing’ concerns

Mr. Seider also said that any runway extension will have to proceed eastward along its current orientation toward Trellis Bay due to obstacles in the flight path to the west.

The 7,000-foot option, however, would narrow the mouth of the bay to a 486-foot channel that would also bring restrictions for seagoing vessels, he said, adding that the shorter extension options would narrow the bay’s opening to a lesser extent.

Though the project is still in the “design development” stage, he added, the extension would include culverts to allow for “flushing” to preserve the bay’s circulation.

Some critics of this plan have suggested that the culverts would quickly be blocked by sargassum and Trellis could devolve into a stagnant “dead bay.”

Other attendees’ concerns focused more on the economy and infrastructure.
“I’m not against extending the runway, but when we talk about extending the runway, there’s a lot of things we’ve got to take into consideration,” said Nehassie Chalwell. “We talking about bringing more bodies here; more water, more sewage. The incinerator situation. We talking about we have to prepare for mass casualties, our health situation. Can we accommodate this?”

Virgin Gorda

During the meeting last Thursday in Virgin Gorda, Shereen Flax-Charles asked about the possibility of instituting preclearance procedures for US-bound passengers to ensure they don’t have to wait in US customs lines for extended periods.

Communications and Works Minister Kye Rymer said that such discussions are ongoing.

“What I can assure you is that it is a very expensive venture and they have expressed that to us, but we will still continue the conversations with them,” the minister said.

A few minutes later, a Virgin Gorda resident asked how the airport would be regulated and if discussions with the regulator had been held.

Mr. Smith said VI officials had been in contact with the United Kingdom-based Air Safety Support International, which oversees air safety in the VI. The agency, he explained, had suggested technical guidelines for the expansion and will be consulted further as the project continues, he said.

Another attendee asked Mr. Rymer to consider improvements to related infrastructure such as roads in East End and transportation to Trellis Bay, which Virgin Gorda residents often use if they are being evacuated in a health emergency. The minister agreed.

Next steps

With the meetings complete, officials and consultants will now work to finish the project’s business case, a UK requirement to obtain approval.

The business case, which Mr. Rymer said should be complete by February, is using the “Green Book Five Case Model” employed by His Majesty’s Treasury in the UK, which includes separate “strategic,” “economic,” “commercial,” “financial” and “management” cases.

Officials have declined to publish a portion of the business case that was completed and approved by Cabinet in September, but they said they will make the study public after it has been fully completed.