JCAA to triple profit from new fee on air travellers
Published:Wednesday | June 15, 2011 | 12:00 AM
THE Jamaica Civil Aviation Authority (JCAA) will triple its profits this year, according to finance ministry data, but will be relying on a new fee payable by airline passengers.
The new Passenger Service Charge should have taken effect June 1, but the JCAA is yet to confirm that it has kept to the schedule.
The corporate communications unit of Air Jamaica said the fee is expected to amount to US$27.50 per passenger and would be billed on airline tickets.
A similar fee payable in Barbados amounts to US$8.50 per passenger, the unit said.
The Jamaican passenger fee is expected to raise J$1.25 billion for the agency this fiscal year, accounting for just about half the J$2.7 billion of total revenue the commercial airspace regulator is projecting.
The other half, J$1.35 billion, will come from air-navigation fees.
Income from the passenger charge will offset an expected J$300 million drop in navigation- fee income, and finance an additional J$162 million of operating expenses linked to rising directors fees and employee salaries.
The civil-aviation agency will spend a total of J$1.77 billion on operations this year, up from J$1.61 billion last year.
But its bottomline will be enriched by J$619m or 190 per cent — rising from J$325 million of estimated surplus at yearend March 2011 to J$944 million this period, according to the finance ministry's Jamaica Public Bodies report.
JCAA has not responded to requests for comment on how the fee is to be structured.
But a passenger-service charge is normally paid by departing travellers, except for passengers in transit and children aged two or younger.
The fee was scheduled to be implemented on June 1 for the first time in Jamaica.
"The implementation of this fee will reduce the cost of operations terminating in Jamaica, as well as domestic operations and serve to foster growth and development in the sector," said the Public Bodies report.