National

Family Island Airports: A Promised Improvement From Last Election

NASSAU, BAHAMAS – Even as elections loom the government’s airport projects continue ahead through its Family Island Renaissance Project.

Published

4 months ago

April 5, 2026

Joshua Williams

EXUMA, BAHAMAS – Even as elections loom the government’s airport projects continue ahead.

The Davis administration, through its Family Island Renaissance Project, vowed in their last blueprint for change to build and renovate airports across the family islands.

Among those still under construction is the airport in Great Exuma.

Deputy Prime Minister, Chester Cooper, who also serves as Tourism, Investments and Aviation Minister and MP for Exuma and Ragged Island shares some insight into the on-going work there.

Chester Cooper – Deputy Prime Minister

“We’re now going up on the second floor I think each each week I travel there. I’m pretty pleased with the progress that we’re seeing.”

“We expanded the original footprint to now be able to accommodate 400 passengers in the departure lounge, and we hope that the construction will finish soon, otherwise we might need to revise it again given the growth that we’re seeing in Exuma.”

Then there’s the North Eleuthera Airport with its ongoing construction, even though the funding contract signing dates back to 2024.

Chester Cooper – Deputy Prime Minister

“We’ve done a lot of the preliminary works in terms of bringing the existing terminals up to speed. A week or so ago [we’ve] been clearing the eastern end of the runway, and that work is progressing as well.”

Now, by far the more anticipated airport redevelopment is the Grand Bahama International Airport which was damaged by Hurricane Dorian.

So far, it has been a ‘hot button’ election issue.

However, while government signed a deal for the first phase of the airport, nothing has happened there yet.

Chester Cooper – Deputy Prime Minister

“We should see vertical development there very soon. I don’t have a specific time frame as you would have imagined and appreciated. The airport flooded many times and therefore we had to get sufficient environmental geoechnical studies, and I think we had a point that you should see active construction on the side real soon.”