Cayman’s government-owned airline is planning to replace its two small aeroplanes, estimated to be nearly 25 years old, with more modern alternatives.
The 30-seat Saab aircraft were bought in 2015 to allow Cayman Airways to make up to four round-trips a day to Cayman Brac, according to executive vice president Paul Tibbetts.
The planes were successfully implemented, he said, and helped to grow traffic on the route.
However, that number of passengers has increased now to such a volume that the Saabs are rapidly becoming too small for their intended use.
Tibbetts said they are coming up to their 25th year, which is “typically the time that we would start looking to retire them and move into a newer aircraft”.
He provided the information in response to a question from Moses Kirkconnell, during the Finance Committee debate in the House of Parliament on Wednesday, 13 Dec.
The MP said there are huge infrastructure projects budgeted to take place in Cayman Brac in the coming years and asked how the airline will transport people and cargo.
The executive vice president said the airline has been looking at alternative planes that would be suited to the route, as well as for cargo and regional flying.
He said 50-seat ATR 42-600 “fits the bill nicely” as it has a short take-off and landing variant, allowing it to be used in Little Cayman as well.
Currently, Cayman Airways operates two Twin Otter planes to and from Little Cayman – a tender process is in place for a third.
“The timing seems to be right with moving from the Saab aircraft into another aircraft type,” he said.
Tibbetts said that once Cayman Airways is in a position to move forward, details will be presented to the board and the government.
He told the committee he hopes it will happen “as quickly as possible” and estimated within a year.
As well as sourcing the aircraft, the airline will have to confirm funding, transport it, train the crew, and get maintenance, tooling and spare parts needed to operate it, he said.
Minister of Tourism Kenneth Bryan explained that the old aircraft could be sold to part fund the new ones but said that ideally, for speed, the money would come from the government.
For 2024, the government has budgeted a $12.1 million equity investment for the airline and $9.1 million during 2025.
“I wish there was more there to work with, but I am I’m certain that my team will support the necessary injections to the airline for them to facilitate the process quickly,” Bryan said.
He stressed that more people will be using the Cayman Brac service as a result of increased economic activity.
“The quicker we do this, the better it is, otherwise we’re going to have problems with flights back and forth to the Sister Islands,” he said.
The budget also detailed a payment of $3,134,000 for ‘strategic domestic air services’ both in 2024 and 2025 – a total of $6,268,000 over two years.
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Yes, this is definitely needed !!!
2 weeks ago both Saab’s were broken and all the outbound flights from CYB were cancelled. We sat in the Brac airport for 10 hours. Finally at 8 PM a 737 showed up to take us to GCM but we had by then missed our Cayman Airways connection to LAX (with the next flight 4 days away). We were offered middle seat coach on American to LAX, which probably was fair, but we paid our own way home to sit together with good seats. A big lesson was learned for our next trip to CYB!