New international airport scheduled to open early 2013

Glen Beache, chief executive officer of the St Vincent and the Grenadines Tourism Authority (SVGTA), says the government plans to commission its new Argyle International Airport in early 2013.

Beache, the tourism minister in the former Unity Labour Party administration, told the 4th Routes Americas conference that opened in Santo Domingo Monday that the new facility, which is expected to attract direct flights from key North American and European gateways, has sparked the interest of major carriers from the US, Canada and Europe, along with leading hotel and resort companies who are taking a closer look at investment opportunities in St Vincent.

"On St Vincent itself, the new Buccament Bay Resort, about half an hour's drive from the new airport, is set to open with 100 rooms in April 2011, with top amenities and facilities to eventually accommodate 1,600 guests," he told the conference, held in the Caribbean for the first time.

In the Grenadines, CRD Group, an investor in Sandy Lane, Barbados, has agreed to invest over US$100 million in the Canouan Resort at Carenage Bay. In Bequia, the Bequia Beach Hotel is expanding from 30 to 65 rooms before year's end.

"We see this trend continuing over the next two to three years as a result of the new airport," Beache said.

Argyle International will replace the existing E.T. Joshua Airport at Arnos Vale, just a stone's throw from the capital, Kingstown.

Largest project

"As the largest development project ever undertaken in St Vincent and the Grenadines, it is a critical cog in the evolution of the multifaceted, multi-island destination's growing hospitality sector," said the SVGTA in a statement.

"Runway and other construction have been moving ahead, with 65 per cent of the project's earthworks components completed by the end of 2010."

The SVGTA said the new terminal building, on which construction is soon to begin, will have three floors with 129,870 square feet of space — designed to handle about 1.4 million passengers per year, more than five times the number of passengers currently passing through the existing airport.

"The Argyle International Airport Terminal has been carefully sized to accommodate our expected growth in passenger traffic over both the medium and long terms," Beache said.

"Tourism is, and is likely, to remain our main foreign exchange earner; and this investment in major infrastructure development will allow us to attract direct flights from major US, Canadian and European cities," he added.

Argyle International will sit on roughly 175 acres of land, with a paved runway 9,000 feet long and 150 feet wide, and is designed to accommodate jets as large as Boeing 747-400s.

The project broke ground in 2008, and is expected to be complete by the end of 2012.

The airport is being developed by the International Airport Development Company (IADC), a private limited liability company, wholly owned by the government of St Vincent and the Grenadines.

The IADC said work on the earthworks resumed on Monday, following the return of the Cuban workers.

- CMC