New Ian Fleming flights to boost northeast investment push
Published:Friday | June 17, 2022 | 12:09 AMCarl Gilchrist/Gleaner Writer
Eleven years after the Boscobel Aerodrome was upgraded and renamed the Ian Fleming International Airport, the facility welcomed its first international commercial flight on Thursday when an interCaribbean Airways 30-seat airplane arrived from Provinciales, Turks and Caicos, touching down at 9:45 a.m.
The regional airline, owned and chaired by Lyndon Gardiner, is the first of several carriers that had announced it would begin using the airport commercially, with American Airlines and QCAS Aero also scheduled to begin flights to the facility later this year.
Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett said that the developments opened up opportunities for further tourism investment in St Mary.
Thursday’s arrival coincided with a push by the tourism ministry to develop a north coast zone – from Oracabessa in St Mary to Port Antonio, Portland – that will target high-end tourists.
Zoning, Bartlett said, would define the density and type of buildings that would be allowed on the stretch, with multistorey structures being barred.
“We’re not seeing this as an all-inclusive enclave type of tourism but more of a resort village-type tourism with high-end facilities, attracting a new demographic in some instances, but of course, some of the already known proven and tried travellers who have been part of the Jamaican landscape and who have operated in spaces like Round Hill and Tryall, and so on, who know what that type of offering is for Jamaica,” the tourism minister said.
“So this whole area is now going to be considered in this light, and I want to make the point early that we’re not encouraging high-density investment in this area.”
St Mary Western Member of Parliament Robert Montague and Chamber of Commerce President Fredrick Young also hailed the economic benefits of having regular commercial flights at Ian Fleming, with the lawmaker particularly pleased about the development.
“I’m very, very, very excited about the first scheduled international commercial flight coming to Ian Fleming,” he told The Gleaner.
“I’m also elated it is a Caribbean-owned airline that is coming, and we’ll have that distinction, and I know on behalf of the people of St Mary, we’re very happy that this facility will bring a lot of opportunities to people.”
Montague, who was minister of transport and mining at the time, had announced in December 2021 that interCaribbean Airways would begin commercial flights to Ian Fleming this year.
He had said that airport operations would pump more than US$2 million into the Jamaican economy.
Meanwhile, Young said several sectors in the parish would thrive from investments.
“We see benefits coming, to include persons in sectors such as ground transportation, security, services, food, and the whole nine yards, so the people of St Mary need to position themselves now to be involved in this new process,” Young told The Gleaner.
Gardiner, interCaribbean’s chairman, on Thursday hailed the input of Gordon ‘Butch’ Stewart, the late Sandals Resorts chairman, and Montague as being instrumental in his decision to include Ian Fleming in his itinerary.
The Ian Fleming International Airport was named in honour of the late James Bond spy novelist who made the northeastern Jamaican parish of St Mary his home while writing the series, which has spawned a movie serial.