Negril International Airport’s Time Horizons | Business News | @CVMTVNews

Now, with questions swirling about the construction of a third international airport here in Jamaica, this update now from Joel Crosskill. Lots to share with you in the business report today as anticipation grows for the construction of Jamaica's fourth international airport to be located in Little London less than 20 km distance from the 7-Mile Negril Beach. The recently concluded Thrupp X Investment Conference was the runway from which Horace Bryson, senior director of engineering, maintenance, and projects at the Airports Authority of Jamaica indicated the timelines involved before the almost half a billion US dollar project achieves lift-off. So, that area in green that you see there is the proposed site that is preferred for the locate for the airport. That is a couple hundred acres. But, that's the kind of planning and the magnitude that we have to do. Now, what you're looking at there in the middle is actually a runway strip. All right. And it's it's a couple miles long. About 3 miles long. This is all in the in the name of development and development of our country. Negril and its environs currently contribute close to a third of the island's 4.3 billion US dollars in tourism earnings while attracting just 18% of total arrivals. The construction of a new airport is expected to increase those numbers significantly. When a tourist gets on a plane and they take 2 hours to come here, they want to start their holiday as quickly as possible. So, it's quite frustrating for them. And we get the complaints. We we we we get the the feedback from the Jamaica Tourist Board and the other entities that tells us these things. When we build the Negril Airport, our analysis shows that in a little while we will be accommodating 189,000 passengers. With projections for that number to climb to 1.23 million by 2047, however, concerns continue to linger relating to the involvement of local contractors in its construction. Concerns were voiced in relation to the selection of concessionaires with some advocating that preference for Jamaican businesses should be reserved. There will be no direct contracting any entity whatsoever. It will be by competitive bidding. Totally. Yeah? The size of it may be a little bit big for any single Jamaican company. But when we put our bids bid offers like these, we accept joint ventures as well. And allow time cuz joint ventures don't form overnight. So, we allow time within the bidding process for joint ventures to come together. And we prefer when we see Jamaicans involved. We benefit more and we're more assured that the money stays here. We actually have a preference for qualified, capable locals to benefit from these one-off, one-of-a-lifetime projects. Prospective bidders, however, have less than a year to prepare, according to the airport authority's senior director. It would come out in about 8 to 9 months. Oh. Okay. I say to be all over the place gazetted newspaper JAS all over. The the government procurement process takes some time, but we would like to have showers in the ground where where now at 2026. Definitely by 2028 by or 2030. That's what the kind of time kind of timeline that we're looking at. And again, perfect world, how long would it take to complete or complete in the sense of having airplanes land on that runway? You wouldn't get a runway under maybe 24 to 36 months all told. So, 3 years is a reasonable time. And that was your business report. I'm Joel Crosskill.