A year or so ago our tourism minister revealed plans to begin extending the runway at Owen Roberts International Airport. I have not heard a peep since. Is this initiative alive or dead?
Auntie’s answer: I would say that the plan is not dead, but taking a little rest. According to the Cayman Islands Airports Authority (CIAA), the request for proposal (RFP) for the design of the runway extension was sent out last year.
The CIAA confirmed that they received four bids for the project but “the responses weren’t favourable so the Airports Authority is in the process of preparing another RFP to go out”.
The authority expects to send out this new request in the “upcoming months”. Clearly this process is going to take a while, but the CIAA spokesperson assured me that the authority will inform the public when the RFP goes out with a notice on its website.
The notion of “upgrading ” this airport is flawed. It is in a bad location, surrounded by structures of all sorts. Moving the airport to the eastern side of the island, in the interior would allow the Government to build a airport that can meet the needs of the country for the next 50 years, and then have space to expand after that.
There is ample land on that side, securing the land around a new airport would ensure that we don’t have to spend extra millions just to buy the land.
We will come to this decision when the cost is 10 times what it would be to do it now.
All inclusive resorts only benefit the resort. They stay on property and come to town once a week. I find europeans a real headache, first they don’t speak English, second they only like their kind of food, third they don’t tip only if you speak their language. Which island is above Cayman in wages? Tourism has to benefit the countries people, not create cheaper vacations for your friends and family. I don’t mean it to disrespect you but even Ritz Carlton hardly have Caymanians working their and they don’t benefit anyone outside besides Red Sail sports and Majestic tours owned by the same owner. Great for them but not anyone else.
Virgin, KLM, Lufthansa and all the rest don’t fly to Cayman and do fly virtually everywhere else in the Caribbean because virtually everywhere else in the Caribbean offers all inclusive resorts. Take a five minute trip over to travelling and see how much a week all inclusive (flights, transfers, baggage, all food, all alcoholic drinks and a fair few activities and watersports) costs from London to Cuba or Jamaica or a bunch of other places. More often than not the entire holiday with all of the above costs less than the BA flight alone to Cayman. And then you have to pay the equivalent of £10 for a glass of wine in a bar when you get here. Unless you have family or friends here then a trip to Cayman from Europe for a standard holiday is for the super rich only.
Why would the government extend the runway before work to rebuild the terminal is complete.???? So you want large plane with more passengers arriving in the islands in the middle of the airport renovation. If you would only read the OBC published on this project you will see that a phased approach was recommended…rebuild the terminal then extend the runway then install jet ways. Seem sensible to me
Just trying to figure out how to attach the new cruiseship dock to the end of the runway that extends into North Sound. Shouldn’t be too much longer now.
Lets make it into a wall that they can land on top of…Trump can pay for it.
If we want more stay over tourists we will need the larger runway so jets from Europe can get it. I note increasing amounts of Far eastern business come here too…that could be a possibility too if we had the right runway
Except that same Minister earlier in his Tenure also pointed out that every projection and discussion with airlines that they had indicated that the longer runway was not needed. ‘Build it and they will come’ only works in movies. In real life you need to make sure that people will use your runway before you build it.
given the language, UK is the primary source of demand for Cayman in Europe. If there was sufficient demand BA would increase its existing schedule. In other words I do not believe that the runway length is a material issue here
spot on….as if all the imaginary asian tourists would have a problem with a new york or miami connection….
there is no demand for direct long haul flights to cayman.
10.06, a little myopic–if Virgin, Lufthansa, BA, Air France, KLM and many a charter airline make a fortune on Caribbean destinations all serving the same route then you have to wonder why Cayman would not. Could it be precisely because people like you don’t believe it? Or do you work for BA ripping huge profits on the one route we have because there is no competition, which in turn discourages people from coming here due to price ?
keep wondering….
a little basic economics will give you your answer….
the issue is for flights to the west coast of the united states, a much bigger source of tourists than Europe. a full 737 cannot take off out of cayman and reach california or seattle non-stop without extremely favorable wind
never….cayman can’t afford it….
btw….don’t listen to the soon come nonsense spouted by the do-nothing ppm……