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Out of Control Taxes By NAD

Nassau Airport DevelopmentPlease allow me to express my concern about the unfair and unnecessary rise in taxes at the Nassau International Airport imposed by Nassau Airport Development. While it is good to have a nice airport as many countries do, I feel the tax increase is totally out of control. Working for an airline I can tell you, I have seen a dramatic decrease in load. I am sure this will affect the hotels too.

At every turn there seems to be another tax added and for no good reason. We pay more than $130 in taxes alone when travelling from Nassau to Miami compared to Miami to Nassau which is only $21. While I agree Miami has a larger number of travellers to absorb their cost, we can have an increase of travellers if the price of tickets were not so expensive. I have travelled to many beautiful airports but the prices aren’t that outrageous. I fear the Bahamas will end up with a nice beautiful but empty airport. In fact, you can go to Nassau International Airport anytime after 5pm and it’s like a graveyard. Most of it is due to the fact that airlines do not want to pay extra money for overtime because they are already paying a hefty landing fee, inspection fee, administrative fee, departure tax, security fee, passenger processing fee and passenger facility charge that is totally too expensive.

Other airports are nice, but how many people travel to see an airport? We travel to see what’s outside of the airport. The government needs to step in and take control of these increases unless we will find ourselves with nice roads (and no tourists to drive on them), nice airport (but no airlines flying into it with tourists) and new hotels in Cable Beach (with no tourists to live in them) all because the taxes are just too high.

I heard our prime minister is concerned about the US elections for fear that the US will lift embargo against Cuba and that tourism will be diverted there. Well, now is the time to do something about it. Be competitive in prices. As a Bahamian I would love to spend my vacation in the Bahamas too, but it’s just too expensive and the government is allowing NAD to destroy tourism through greed. The Bahamas is a great country and Bahamians are intelligent people. We can compete with Cuba and even Florida. But if we don’t do something with these ticket taxes, we will suffer as a nation.

Concerned Airline Worker
Nassau, Bahamas
October, 2012

Posted in Opinions

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