PAC Kingston Airport Limited (PACKAL), the operator of the Norman Manley International Airport (NMIA), is anxiously waiting to secure an operator to build out a service station on the airport’s grounds, which it believes will be icing on the cake when added to the over US$140 million worth of expansion and rehabilitation works now underway at the capital’s international air transit point.

Speaking to the Jamaica Observer following a media tour and briefing held on Wednesday, CEO of PACKAL Sitara English-Byfield said the entity is now in dialogue with a potential bidder and is hoping to secure some success following a number of other discussions.

“We have been doing tenders and talking with service station operators and we’ve never stopped from doing this as we seek to bring one of those businesses to the airport. We’re currently waiting on one to confirm if they will be willing to come and operate here,” she told BusinessWeek.

Citing the airport’s roundabout as an ideal area to have the station, English-Byfield said it would prove lucrative for an interested operator. The challenge in not having this opportunity already taken up she, however, said surrounds the concession period.

“The project is a greenfield one, which means they’ll have to build from scratch and this will be expensive. With only 20 years left in our concession, we believe that any operator who builds from scratch will want a longer term, which we do not have, and we cannot speak beyond the 25 years because we do not know what the future holds,” the CEO, who was appointed in April of this year, said.

“As we continue to have dialogue with a number of operators, we’re hoping that by the end of this year we’ll be able to put up that ‘coming soon’ sign to say [which] operator will be coming to Norman Manley and that we will get to have a service station here,” she further noted.

PACKAL, which took over operations of the Kingston airport under a 25-year concession agreement with the Government of Jamaica in 2019, will see its concessionary period come to an end in 2044, with an option to extend for an additional five years. The entity owned by Mexican outfit, Pacific Airport Group, also holds the concession for the Sangster International Airport in Montego-Bay, operated through an entity called MBJ Airports Limited.

Concerning the roll-out of the capital expansion programme now underway at different sections of the NMIA, PACKAL, as the airport’s operator, said it has been moving to fast-track a number of rehabilitation works amid numerous complaints about the poor state of the airport by travellers — much of which are tied to the entity’s aged infrastructure.

Among the long list of renovation projects now at different stages are retiling and check-in counter replacements, restrooms and cooling system improvements, a second-phase expansion of the airport’s solar farm, runway extension and apron repavement, wastewater treatment plant upgrade, commercial area expansion (with three new food and beverage stores to be added in the terminal lounge), installation of a new passenger loading bridge, covered walkways and pick-up areas, customs and arrival section upgrade and several others that will result in an overall improvement in the look and feel of the airport.

“The customs hall and arrival area is one of our next big projects with an estimated cost of US$14 million. The design is almost complete and a number of changes will be made including the replacement of carousels,” English-Byfield said.

“For the roundabout rehabilitation the two signs already erected are to be painted with a design to be chosen from a competition among local artists which we will launch soon. Everybody has been asking about the plane tail but I’m hoping that when we put a very large 13 by 15 feet Jamaican flag in the middle of the roundabout people will appreciate it more,” she added.

The projects being done on a phased basis sees some already completed and others timed for completion all the way up to 2029. Since 2019, capital investments have so far been valued at US$15 million.

The project to expand the safety zone on either side of the runway by an additional 300 metres to offer more safety during emergencies is priced at over US$65 million, and is set for completion in 2027. PACKAL is also looking to launch a second phase of its push to use more solar power at the airport, and plans to add an extra three megawatts (MW) of solar power generation to its existing 2.8 MW, and hopes to store some of this power for use when the sun is not out, in batteries capable of storing up to 5MW of power.

But beyond the upgrade to the physical plant, English-Byfield wants to grow passenger numbers coming through the Kingston airport. NMIA now has the capacity to process five million passengers annually, but only did 1.7 million last year. For the first half of this year, the airport welcomed 1.2 million passengers.

Largely considered a visiting friends and relatives (VFR) airport, the CEO said the plan is to tap more into the leisure market, copying a page from the bigger Sangster International Airport which has a capacity to process nine million passengers annually, though it welcomed 5.3 million last year, four times the numbers using NMIA, with most being tourists visiting the island for vacation.

Last year NMIA generated revenues of US$57 million.

“As an airport we are always focused on building traffic, getting more flights and airlines in as we increase passenger count. Since COVID we have not been back to our 2019 levels, so our traffic is kind of up and down right now. A part of the development now is to get ready for the growth we are looking for and expect to get. Over the next few years, there are going to be some other projects, especially those in the area of electro-mechanics on which we will fix our attention as we continue to renew, replace and keep our systems in shape,” English-Byfield said.