A Cessna 402C owned by VI Air Link. Photo: Provided

Captain Neville Braithwaite Jr.

The Embraer 170, which VI Airlink hopes to acquire inorder to make direct flight from Beef Island to Florida. Photo: Wikipedia/Allan Labeda

According to VI Air Link Captain Neville Braithwaite Jr., the locally registered carrier made its maiden charter flight to St. Croix, United States Virgin Islands on Saturday January 21, 2012 and made a second flight to the same destination the following day.

On December 20, 2011, VI Air Link signed an agreement with US air regulator, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), to have its 13-passenger Beechcraft King Air 100 aircraft do charter flights to US ports. The agreement is seen as a breakthrough for VI Air Link, who has long been pushing to receive permission to fly to US ports.

VI Air Link is only the second locally registered airline in the British Overseas Territories and the first in the Virgin Islands to receive such permission.

“This is a great accomplishment for the company, lots of patience were involved because it took over two years,” Mr. Braithwaite Jr. told Virgin Islands News Online.

He added that the airline is seeking to have scheduled flights from Beef Island to San Juan, Puerto Rico in the next three months and also hopes to establish scheduled flights to St. Thomas in the not so distant future.

Furthermore, as early as next month, the airline will be adding two more small aircrafts to the service.

The ultimate aim for VI Air Link, however, is to have direct flights from the Virgin Islands to Florida. According to Mr. Braithwaite Jr., the challenge is in the cost of acquiring the aircraft- the Embraer 170, which would be able to accommodate some 70 passengers and be able to land on the current strip at the Terrence B. Lettsome International Airport.

According to the Wikipedia Encyclopaedia, The Embraer E-Jets are a series of narrow-body, twin-engine, medium-range, jet airliners produced by Embraer, a Brazilian aerospace conglomerate that produces commercial, military, and corporate aircraft. Announced at the Paris Air Show in 1999, and entering production in 2002, the aircraft series has been a success. As of June 30, 2011, there is a backlog of 261 firm orders for the E-Jets and 658options. The manufacturer reported that 742 units had been delivered by June 30, 2011, and predicted that by the end of 2016, more than 1,100 units would be delivered.

Talk show host Cromwell Smith had recently supported the idea of VI Air Link being able to acquire the Embraer 170, which he said would make it even more “possible and more probable than ever to airlift Chinese tourists from Jamaica to the BVI, from Santo Domingo to the BVI, so it opens up a whole new opportunity for our local businessmen, the VI Airlink, our company that is in our national security interest, and we have all these opportunities to increase our market share of Tourism. So this is something that I think the Government need to hop on right away, get them planes from South America, get them brothers hooked up with all them connections…”

He had also said that now that local carrier VI Air Link is authorised to fly in and out of US ports, it is an opportune time for Government to step in to ensure the survival of the local enterprise and does not necessarily have to immediately expand the airport at Beef Island once VI Air Link is able to acquire the Embraer 170.

“I really looking forward to that and it’s not going to take a lot. The same concessions and incentives and assistance that the governments, past and present, have given to American Eagle, all the brothers want is that same assistance,” Mr. Smith had added.

In April of last year VI Air Link had cried foul that it has to share the 25 percent tourist market with United States registered airlines while being unable to penetrate US ports to tap into the more lucrative travelling market and had called on Government to address the situation, which it says would, among other things, serve to tremendously impact unemployment problems in the Virgin Islands.

Captains Neville Braithwaite Jnr. and Norville Braithwaite, speaking on the talk show Umoja on Thursday evening April 7, 2011 had said that the unfair competition and restrictions are a hindrance to the local airline’s development and for had the overseas territory to fully benefit from the vibrant tourism industry.

“There are international laws in place to have economic protection on airlines no matter what country they in but the BVI is in a different category because we have to share our market with US companies…We could only access 25 percent of the market in the BVI when it comes to tourism and we are sharing that 25 percent with US companies like Fly BVI and Island Birds and they are based in the BVI as US companies…right now we can’t access the US market. We have applied for that about a year and eight months ago now and we are patiently waiting on that process,” Braithwaite Jnr. had said.

He had also noted that the US airlines that are operating in the Territory are in the same categories as the local carriers but are enjoying privileges of higher category air carriers. “In the case of the two US carriers, here they are exercising six and seven freedoms. They operating out of the BVI freely where they can go just anywhere from the BVI to anywhere they want to,” Braithwaite Jr. had added.

Braithwaite had explained that the carriers are allowed flight freedoms of the air within the 1-5 range as stipulated by the International Civil Aviation Organization and which should only allow such air carriers to travel from their territory to another and return before proceeding to another territory.

“We just looking for a level playing field…The United States has made it clear to us that once we give you permission to come into the United States, which you only suppose to come from an overseas territory to the United States and back, if we catch you coming from the United States say to St. Thomas and going to Dominica without coming back to your home state, which is the overseas territories, you are going to lose your license.”

The experienced aviator had added that he heard that the justification for the other airlines operating out of the Virgin Islands and enjoying other privileges was because the local carriers did not have enough seats but he noted that if the restrictions were lifted local airlines would expand to meet the increased travelling population. “If we have our fair market share we would have the ability to make expansion. We could go back to the financial institutions and justify what we are doing.”