An Request For Proposal (RFP) has been issued by the government for a company to assist in monitoring the country’s airspace.
As Tourism Minister Dionisio D’Aguilar puts it – “The Bahamas has no institutional knowledge of how to do so.”
“The RFP closes at the end of this month and then we will review the bids and make a decision on an entity to help us move this project forward, so it’s on schedule doing what I expect it to do,” he said.
It was last January that Minister D’Aguilar noted that within six months, The Bahamas would know its airspace boundaries.
The idea of The Bahamas controlling its own airspace was started under the Christie Administration, having determined that the country was missing out on some $30 million annually in overflight fees.
In May 2018,the government announced the approval for aviation officials to charge airlines for using Bahamian airspaces.
During that same time Minister D’Aguilar said that the collected over flight fees would be used for the management and upgrade of the country’s air navigation system in the Bahamas.