Bahamasair
Bahamasair is an
airline based in
Nassau, Bahamas. It is the national airline and operates domestic and regional scheduled services. Its main base is
Nassau International Airport (NAS).
Bahamasair was born out of the oil crisis of the
1970s. In
1970,
British Airways stopped flying to The Bahamas, and the Bahamian Government accurately predicted that some of the other major airlines flying to the country would follow British Airways' lead. So Bahamasair was established by the government and started operations on
18 June 1973, by acquiring the operations of Flamingo Airlines and Out Island Airways. Bahamasair was met initially with a lot of problems, such as poor maintenance facilities, economic shape and company structure.
All that brought public distrust as a consequential added problem. But soon jets started to arrive in the shape of brand new
Boeing 737s, and in
1972, it opened its first international service, from Nassau to
Tampa,
Florida. In
1973, the government's vision of many airlines leaving the island became a reality, when
Pan Am and a few other major companies decided to walk the road out that had been opened by British Airways. With that, Bahamasair grabbed a substantial part of the Bahamas air market. Through the rest of the 1970s, Bahamasair kept adding flights to other cities in Florida and, domestically, the presence of the airline also grew at a large rate.
During the early
1980s, Bahamasair unsuccessfully tried to expand to the Northeast
United States, opening flights to
Philadelphia,
Washington DC (Dulles) and
Newark, New Jersey. But in
1989, the airline's directors decided that those routes were not profitable and cut them off the airline's route map. Also in 1989, the
Boeing 727 first came into the fleet. They would acquire a total of two. That was also the year that a new livery and workers' uniform were introduced.
In
1991,
De Havilland DHC-8 were brought over to substitute the whole jet fleet, but in
1997, the Boeing 737's made their way back, and those, in turn, substituted the DHC-8's on the routes to Florida, while the DHC-8's were kept to cover the domestic routes.
Bahamasair operates the following services (as of April
2006) from its base at
Nassau International Airport:
*Domestic scheduled services:
**
Andros Town **
Arthur's Town **
Crooked Island **
Deadmans Cay **
Freeport (
Grand Bahama International Airport)
**
George Town **
Governors Harbour **
Inagua **
Mangrove Cay **
Marsh Harbour **
Mayaguana **
Nassau **
North Eleuthera **
Rock Sound **
San Andros **
San Salvador **
South Andros **
Spring Point**
Stella Maris **
The Bight**
Treasure Cay*International scheduled services:
**
Florida,
United States***
Fort Lauderdale (
Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport)
***
Miami (
Miami International Airport)
***
Orlando (
Orlando International Airport)
***
West Palm Beach (
Palm Beach International Airport)
**
Cuba***
Havana (
José Martí International Airport)
**
Turks and Caicos Islands***
Providenciales (
Providenciales International Airport)
**
Jamaica***
Kingston (
Norman Manley International Airport)
**
Dominican Republic***
Santo Domingo (
Las Américas International Airport)
Its livery is comprised of white, ocean blue and sunshine yellow on the fuselage with the name Bahamasair written over the passenger windows in ocean blue, with an ocean blue tail that has the face of a white, green and yellow bird portrayed.
The Bahamasair fleet consists of the following aircraft (at January 2006):
*3
Boeing 737-200*7 Bombardier
Dash 8 Q300
*
Bahamasair*
Bahamasair Passenger Opinions
