Bahamasair eyes Airbus A220 for deeper expansion into US and Latin America

Bahamasair is eyeing an order for new jets that could grow its fleet and expand nonstop flight opportunities to the island nation.

"The main aircraft that we're looking at is the Airbus [A]220," Tracy Cooper, CEO of Bahamasair, said at the Routes Americas conference in Nassau, Bahamas, on Monday.

The airline is considering an order for eight to 10 planes that would replace its four aging Boeing 737-700s — the aircraft range in age from 18 to 21 years old, data from FlightRadar24 shows — and grow its fleet.

An order, Cooper continued, could be unveiled this year depending on the availability of capital for the new planes.

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The A220 "provides us opportunities to do things that we're not doing presently — that airplane can fly easily to the full [breadth] of the U.S. and get us well into Latin America," Cooper said.

According to Airbus, the A220-300 can fly around 3,900 miles with a standard two-class layout of 120 to 150 seats. That's further than Bahamasair's existing 737s and the range of the A220's main competitor, the Embraer E195-E2, which can fly around 3,000 miles with a standard single-class layout of just 132 seats.

Bahamasair's 737-700s all have more than 140 seats. The airline also has a fleet of five ATR turboprops that it uses primarily for domestic flights in the Bahamas.

Schedule data from aviation analytics firm Cirium shows that the carrier serves four U.S. airports: Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport (FLL), Miami International Airport (MIA), Orlando International Airport (MCO) and Palm Beach International Airport (PBI) in West Palm Beach, Florida. It also flies to Cap-Haitien, Haiti; Havana; Montego Bay, Jamaica; and Providenciales in the Turks and Caicos islands.

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The A220 is a popular aircraft with airlines and passengers alike. Developed by Bombardier in the 2010s before being bought by Airbus, the jet has half as many middle seats as its larger competitors, the Airbus A320 and the Boeing 737, thanks to its 2-3 configuration in economy. It also benefits from the latest in engine technology, making it more fuel-efficient than older models and, as Cooper mentioned, have a range capable of transcontinental flights in North America.

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North American A220 operators include Air Canada, Breeze Airways, Delta Air Lines, and JetBlue.

Bahamasair has its sights set first on Latin America with its next aircraft. The A220s would enable nonstop flights from Nassau's Lynden Pindling International Airport (NAS) to airports in Colombia, Mexico and Panama — in other words, Latin American hubs — Cooper said. From there, Bahamasair would seek to partner with major Latin airlines to feed people onto its flights.

"The intent is really to get [visitors] onto Bahamasair and into beds in the hotels here in the Bahamas," he said.

Bahamasair is owned by the Bahamian government.

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