PAC Kingston Airport Limited (PACKAL) — operators of the Norman Manley International Airport — in responding to jitters amongst commercial aviation operators about plans to shutter the Tinson Pen aerodrome at Marcus Garvey Drive in Kingston and relocate it to the airport, says consultation and data will guide its input.

“We agree that several issues need to be included in this very, very important assessment of the suitability to relocate the operations of Tinson Pen to Norman Manley, many different things need to be taken into consideration,” chief executive officer of PACKAL Fernando Vistrain Lorence told individuals at a recent forum put on by PACKAL.

The plan to remove the aerodrome is aimed at facilitating further expansion of the Kingston port and has been on the table from as far back as 2006.

Prime Minister Holness during the budget debates in April this year directed the Port Authority of Jamaica, the Airports Authority of Jamaica, and the National Works Agency to develop a comprehensive plan to facilitate the takeover of the Tinson Pen lands for more storage space and reduce congestion at the terminal.

Speaking at the forum Lorence said, “Mixing cargo operations with general aviation or commercial operations with general aviation, this is very important, we know it. Currently we are doing an assessment with a company from Spain, they are doing an analysis with the land we have available, we are doing that part.”

The Airport CEO, who said a first draft of that study will be presented this month, said that internal assessment is a first step.

“We will check if we have capacity for hangars or if we don’t have capacity at all. We are doing our part and we will provide the information or the results of this assessment to the Airports Authority of Jamaica and they will advise us on what will happen. We will be guided by the Airports Authority of Jamaica,” Lorence stated.

He was responding to concerns over the proposed move by general aviation stakeholder Christopher Reid who said discussions for the relocation were being done “without the input of the industry”.

“I am one that was unceremoniously removed from Norman Manley nearly 50 years ago and placed at Tinson Pen under protest…I am here today to tell you 50 years later that the improvement in aircraft maintenance as it relates to corrosion was a huge step forward moving to Tinson Pen. Obviously a lot has happened in terms of our highway access, the traffic consideration, much has changed at Tinson Pen and I only caution us about removing it without adequate discussion with the stakeholders as it relates to the proximity of the airport to the end-users and its usefulness,” Reid a former president of the Aircraft Owners and Operators Pilots Association said.

According to Reid, who also runs Airpak Express from Tinson Pen, the conditions which were cited as the reason for the initial removal of the aerodrome to the current location.

“One of the prime reasons we were relocated from Norman Manley was the fact of separation of traffic. Aircraft travelling as well as passenger travel. One of the justifying reasons is that there was not enough land space at Norman Manley to safely accommodate both general aviation and airlines particularly in the context of flying schools where you have low qualification pilots intermingling with airline traffic and the potential disaster and that was accepted as a bonafide reason for moving us to Tinson Pen,” Reid pointed out.

“I don’t know that there is any more land space today at Norman Manley than there was in 1973 when we were moved. In fact, the forecasts say we will have less land space as global warming continues its trend and our coastal areas are submerged. So I don’t know what has changed and why Tinson Pen should now be moved back to Norman Manley because today, separation of traffic for security reasons is now more of a concern than it was in 1973,” Reid persisted.

“We have infinitely more concerns about the types of passengers being intermingled between the two, particularly in the absence of a physical separation as they have in most international airports for general aviation where the general aviation traffic is on the other side of the airport completely and connects only by a perimeter type arrangement; there is no direct access from general aviation to the main terminal,” he said.

“So I only caution that all of the considerations for any such relocation are taken into consideration and that we don’t make a retrograde step and cause ourselves to be the subject of some investigation and hopefully not an accident down the road,” he added.

Tinson Pen was originally built in the 1940s as a military airfield and was later converted into a civilian airport in the 1960s. The airport provides general aviation services, such as charter flights, air ambulance services, and cargo operations.