Expect the friendly Bahamian skies to get a little friendlier in the months to come. Heuter Rolle, owner of the start-up commercial airline Sky Bahamas, said his fledgling fleet will compete directly with Bahamasair for Exuma passengers.
Sky Bahamas currently operates just one plane, but the company is in the process of acquiring two more commercial propjets from Orlando, Florida, Mr Rolle said in an interview with the Guardian.
In his address to a room of would-be entrepreneurs and investors at the Exuma Business Outlook, an enthusiastic Mr Rolle stressed investment and entrepreneurship.
Following the theme of “success in a new business environment,” he said it took him a $1.1 million investment to achieve certification as a commercial airline, a mere $200,000 coming from the Bahamas Development Bank. The rest he said he scrounged from friends and family, going so far as to take a second mortgage on his home.
“People thought I was crazy,” he said. But, Mr Rolle stressed to a room full of would-be businesses men and women, “Opportunities are here, all you have to do is take a risk.”
Prior to his venture as owner of Sky Bahamas, Mr Rolle owned the charter company Sky Unlimited with a fleet of 19-seat Beech 1900s. Any carrier that flies with fewer than 20 passengers does not have to follow the same regulations as commercially certified carriers.
Once carriers decide to make the jump from private to certified, “it’s a whole different game,” Mr Rolle said. “Every single thing you do with an airline has to be properly documented … right down to how you fuel the plane.” The documentation and management represents a major point of the investment Sky Bahamas put into their venture in commercial aviation. Under Civil Aviation Authority standards, carriers must have a flight management team, which handles communications with other commercial carriers and airport authorities. Sky Bahamas employs the same Canadian firm as Bahamasair.
Sky Bahamas made the transition in May from a charter airline to a fully licensed commercial carrier in May of this year after 11 months of dialogue with a flight standards inspector in the Civil Aviation Authority.
Mr Rolle’s greatest challenge in certifying Sky Bahamas? “The authorities believed I couldn’t do it,” he said. “It really took the wind out of my sails for a while.” But, it was that challenge that “spurred me to keep on going,” he said.
By: Sam Smith, The Nassau Guardian
