Both the Norman Manley International Airport (NMIA) and the Sangster International Airport have seen a downturn in traffic this year.

This may be due to Travel Advisories placed on Jamaica by both the United States and Canada plus a downturn in the economies of source markets.

Speaking at the PACKAL Airport Forum held at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel yesterday the President and CEO of the Airports Authority of Jamaica (AAJ), Audley Deidrick announced “ that the year 2024 has seen a slump in the traffic growth compared to both budget and last year, 2023. Hence as at October 2023, total traffic was 5.7 million versus budget of 6.2 million and last year date of 5.8 million, representing a downturn of 6 per cent below budget and 2 per cent below last year- to -date.

“For the period January to October 2024, MBJ/SIA posted 4.26 million passengers versus 4.36 million for the same period in 2023, a downturn of 2 per cent while PACKAL/NMIA posted 1.46 million passengers versus 1.46 million to remain flat versus the corresponding period for 2023.

“Based on these year-to-date performances, the total traffic forecast by AAJ for 2024 of 6.9 million passengers versus 7.1 million passengers for 2023, spells a downturn of  2 per cent. MBJ/SIA is forecasted to end 2024 at 5.16 million passengers versus 5.27 million for 2023, a downturn of 2 per cent, while PACKAL/NMIA is forecasted to end 2024 at 1.74 million passengers to remain flat with 2023’s traffic at 1.74 million.

“ The impact of our aviation traffic downturn for 2024 vs 2023, driven mainly by the downturn reported in tourism and its impact on our economic performance as a whole, is well reported.

The airports boss noted  Jamaica posted total traffic of 7 million passengers versus 6.5 million passengers in 2019. He added that the post-COVID recovery period  2021, 2022 and 2023 was encouraging and things looked on the up and up. In fact, for 2023, MBJ/SIA posted traffic of 5.2 million passengers versus 4.7 million for 2019, 11 per cent above 2019 while NMIA posted 1.7 passengers in 2023 versus 1.8 million in 2019, a shortfall of 5 per cent from 2019.

Progress was expected to be made in 2024 but instead there was a slump in traffic. Deidrick added that travel and tourism makes up 30 per cent of Jamaica’s GDP. 

“ I must commend the Mexican company GAP for staying the course with PACKAL  and the NMIA through the difficult recovery period of the COVID pandemic and the investments they continue to make in upgrading the facilities and systems of the NMIA. We anticipate improvement in the NMIA service quality as PACKAL continues its capital development and maintenance programmes. 

“ As stakeholders, let us work together with the common goal of making NMIA  the premier gateway into the capital city Kingston and Jamaica as a whole.”

Opposition Spokesperson on Transport Mikael Phillips posed the question, how will the throughput of passengers to NMIA be increased?

“I had my concerns when the GAP Group won the tender for NMIA. With the company also having Sangsters International Airport, how would it both grow without one suffering for the other? As the Opposition, we are willing to work with the operators not only for their own profits but for the development of Jamaica which is critical,” said Phillips. 

Of concern is a survey that was conducted at NMIA which revealed a decline in the service quality of the restaurants, cafes, bars and shops. This was also the case for value for money. The experience with customs officers is down by 11 per cent. The ranking for Latin American and Caribbean airports with traffic of less than 2 million reveals NMIA comes in at 38, for overall experience which places it at the bottom of the heap with  38 countries listed in that section of the survey. NMIA sits at 72 for all airports for overall experience (that’s out of a total of 76 airports).