THE Amber Group is betting on plans to transform the nation’s transportation and security landscape for its next phase of growth.

The company, which in August signed a partnership deal with Hawkeye Electronic Security Limited, connecting its Amber Connect customers to Hawkeye’s stolen vehicle recovery and panic button response services while Hawkeye’s customers were connected to Amber’s vehicle tracking and in cases of companies, fleet management system, is already considering new services to add to the offerings.

“We are working on quite a few things now,” Dushyant Savadia, CEO of Amber Group told the Jamaica Observer in a recent interview. He said at least two of the new services are slated to roll out before the end of this year.

“One is called Escort Me, so if, for example, if it’s late at night and you are coming from a party and you feel unsafe, from the Amber Connect app you can make one click, you can call for an escort service who will come and drive you home safely. Then we are adding one more service called Stand By Me, which means that if there is a problem with your vehicle on the road and you are by yourself, you can call for an armed response to stand with you until your vehicle is off the road and you are off the road yourself,” Savadia outlined to BusinessWeek.

The Amber Group CEO added that he is also in discussions “to add air support” to the stolen vehicle recovery service that is offered through the collaboration with Hawkeye.

“So if your vehicle is stolen, the air support unit will go out first and keep an eye on the vehicle until the ground team can reach the vehicle too.”

Savadia said he is buoyed by the prospects after seeing how beneficial the partnership with Hawkeye has been so far. In the first month after signing the deal, “what we use to do monthly went up by 30 per cent straight away”, mostly as Hawkeye switched its customers to Amber Connect’s tech platform. In total, Savadia said Amber Connect has 35,000 customers in Jamaica. It has over 500,000 customers in over 100 countries, according to Savadia, who has sights set on introducing even more services with Hawkeye.

“With Amber Connect, the ambition was always how do we add more services to make it really affordable, because private security is very, very expensive. Home alarm systems are very expensive. But imagine this, you drive home and your garage knows you are home and will open the gate for you. And your house knows you are home and will turn on certain lights and AC or whatever you configure. You leave home with your car and your house is automatically armed and you come home and it disarms automatically. It’s the automation that we will bring in a single unified app that will be the deal for Jamaica and making it very affordable, because when you have one service it is very expensive and when you have four or five services your unit cost is cheaper.”

He argues that Amber can provide the services cheaper than the competition because it develops the software and produces the hardware itself and passes on the savings to its customers.

Amber Aviation

Still, air support for stolen vehicle recovery is not the only air service Amber Group is contemplating. Savadia has long dreamt about re-establishing scheduled domestic flights nearly 20 years after Air Jamaica Express folded under financial stress.

Knutsford Express Services Limited, a private bus company based in Montego Bay, St James, started operations June 2006 – eight months after Air Jamaica Express ceased to exist– and has since filled the void in moving people across the island, and has profited from doing so.

Financial statements published in line with Jamaica Stock Exchange rules since the company went public in January 2014 show Knutsford Express’s profit growing handsomely over the last decade despite challenges, including the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. From $50 million in 2014, Knutsford Express boasted a profit of $305.6 million at the end of its 2024 financial year. The company’s financial year closes on May 31 each year.

The company’s revenues have grown at the same pace, reaching $1.9 billion at the end of the 2024 financial year in May, compared to $323 million a decade earlier. Since starting with intercity travel between Kingston and Montego Bay, the company has grown to now provide connections among 18 major towns in Jamaica and to the Norman Manley International Airport in Kingston and the Sangster International Airport in Montego Bay; entered the courier business both locally and overseas; and operates three subsidiaries – KE Connect, which provides the connections to the island’s international airports; Knutsford Express Investment Limited, which is in property development and other investment activities; and MVL Greenvale Limited, which is also involved in investment activities.

Yet, in the face of such a formidable competitor, Savadia has not been daunted from pursuing his dream of re-establishing intercity passenger air service in Jamaica through his Amber Aviation subsidiary. He said he will start with a niche offer, transporting tourists, with plans to launch on November 1.

“We had promised that we would have rolled out in sequences. The first sequence product is Ultra Light for tourists, where I think we are one week out from going live in Ocho Rios, first [to Montego Bay] and then, as soon as our Negril hangers are ready, we will move there as well. So we are starting with that. Phase two will be the domestic transportation for commercial passengers to move between Montego Bay to Kingston and between Negril to Kingston and so on.”

Savadia told BusinessWeek that helicopters will be used to move tourists from the resorts in Ocho Rios and Negril to the airport in Montego Bay. The routes are now serviced by designated tour companies and plans are in place to spend US$800 million to improve the North Coast Highway to allow traffic to flow freer along the corridor, moving tourists and locals alike, even though this road will be tolled. The lack of strong interest, at least now, from airlines to use the Ian Fleming International Airport, which is in close proximity to Ocho Rios, also presents an opportunity for Savadia.

Turning to domestic flights, Savadia said he believes he will be successful, and outlined the rationale behind his confidence.

“Three things have happened over the last five to 10 years. One, the aircraft that are now available are a lot more cheaper and a lot more economical in flying and a lot more economical in maintenance. The world has changed a lot, the tech has changed a lot in the aviation industry itself. Aeroplanes are a lot more efficient than they were before. Second, as a group, we have shared services. We’ve got 13 businesses, but we’ve got one operations team and one marketing team, etc, managing 13 businesses. So when you have shared group services, the cost per company is very tiny. So our overheads are very, very low as compared to an independent unit trying to hire a lawyer, trying to hire a marketing team or an ops team etc, etc, and what we have always decided as a group, that we’ve always believed in giving people a good experience first, money will come automatically later. It is not about shooting up the price to make a lot of profit out of your business, but more importantly how can you enable Jamaicans to use the route of domestic aviation and clean up the clogs that we are creating on the roads, and have more commuting ability at an affordable price.

He added that the business has already bent its mind to accept that it won’t make any profit on the domestic air services for the first three years. Savadia was, however, not clear as to when this service will be launched when asked, though he said he is looking to acquire a 16-seater aircraft for the service to start “hopefully next year”. He also added that OnTime Taxi in which Amber Group holds a 50 per cent stake, could do drop off and pick up from the airport.