MONTEGO BAY, St James – The Airports Authority of Jamaica (AAJ) has announced an acceleration of plans to resume significant parts of the master plan programme at the MBJ-operated Sangster International Airport (SIA).

Included among the efforts is to ease the heavy congestion now being experienced at the facility, as tourism arrivals rebound, following the COVID-19 pandemic.

The disclosure was made by president of the AAJ Audley Diedrich, who noted that the additional work is slated to get underway by the second half of this year.

“The MBJ, supported by AAJ, is now on a fast track to resume the other major elements of the master plan programme to expand the arrival concourse of the terminal to include immigration, Customs and the transportation hall, among other things,” Diedrich said.

“Further expansion work is also slated to take place on the outbound concourse of the facility to include the ticketing hall and the free board screening. These works are now going through the contracting process and are slated to commence in the latter half of 2023,” he added.

He also outlined that other measures to address the congestion issue include the introduction of a further 15 automated border control kiosks for immigration at the Montego Bay airport next month.

“…In the meantime, MBJ, supported by the AAJ, has been working with PICA, Customs and other entities to ameliorate the congestion problems that has emerged with the rapid return of the traffic. These measures include the acquisition of 15 additional automated border control kiosks for immigration, expected to be installed in May, next month,” the AAJ president said.

“Legislative changes have also been announced, which will, among other things, enable discontinuation of the use of the unpopular paper C-5 form and increase paperless passenger processing. That ultimately is our end game. We therefore call for all hands on deck to support these measures as the traffic woes continue,” he added.

Diedrich argued that while the destination welcomed the “rapid recovery from the pandemic in 2022 which continued into 2023”, it was accompanied by “some undesirable consequences” such as the congestion at SIA.

He explained that prior to the pandemic,

SIA, led by MBJ, supported by AAJ, “were in the process of implementing their latest master plan, which among other things, would address the congestion that was developing at the airport at that time”.

“The emergence of the pandemic, and its uncertainties, resulted in these plans to be halted. However, MBJ continued the implementation of the works that were already started under the master plan programme, such as the runway extension that you are seeing out east there and the departure terminal expansion. This part of the terminal expansion was completed and officially opened in December 2022. And the runway extension programme, which is very visible from the highway, is at an advanced stage of completion with final completion expected during the third quarter of 2023,” Diedrich noted.

He also noted that in addition to the issue of congestion, SIA, like other sectors, was also affected by workforce shortage in the wake of the rapid recovery.

“COVID resulted in a massive exodus of the workforce across various industries and again aviation and the travel industry were most severely affected by this exodus of workers. So while the travel and tourism traffic returned with a vigour, the workforce to support the industry did not follow suit. This created challenges for various stakeholders in the airport to meet their usual service level standards,” Diedrich said.

He was speaking at the inauguration of Dufry Jamaica New Walkthrough Shop at SIA on Thursday.

Dufry Jamaica is part of Dufry Group AG, a global travel retail player with operations in 75 countries managing 5,500 outlets, in 1,200 different locations. Dufry Group AG owns several brands such as: Hudson News, HMS Host, Autogrill, Colombia Emeralds, World Duty-Free, Nuance, among others.

Dufry Jamaica has been operating in Jamaica and at SIA for 12 years and currently operates eight shops in Jamaica, with seven of them located in SIA.

Dufry sells a wide range of local and international liquor, perfumes, tobacco, sunglasses, watches, jewellery, travel accessories, toys, chocolate, and local food.

CEO of Dufry Enrique Urioste expressed his company’s “unflinching” commitment to bringing value added to countries which they forge partnerships.

“We are partners of the airport where we operate. We are are partners of the country in which we operate. And our aim is that together and in combination with country, airport and us, we can diver value to the business, we can deliver added value to its people, we can deliver added value to the community into which we operate. We have been operating here since April 2012,” Urioste stated.