Preparing a Flight Path: A new airport and its supporting infrastructure

The business community and Saint Lucia as a nation are looking forward to the completion of upgrades at Hewanorra International Airport. For anyone who is out of the loop and in need of a quick recap, the airport’s redevelopment process will provide a range of new additions and improvements to the current site, ensuring that the nation can maximise on the growth in tourism it has been experiencing in recent years, as well as offer a new foundation for long-term growth across the island generally.

Though the airport will be central to the future of aviation in Saint Lucia, it will require strong supporting infrastructure. If ancillary infrastructure co-exists alongside a major new upgrade, then the benefits from it will flow more seamlessly. But if infrastructure is lacking, or new construction lagging, it can undermine the greatest virtues of a major upgrade.

So what is the state of Saint Lucian infrastructure surrounding the airport project? And what wider considerations need to be factored in to ensure the new era in the airport has a strong start?

A City That Never Sleeps

Any fair understanding of the need for supporting infrastructure to a major population centre must recognise the size and scale of airports. While it’s easy to give this little thought if passing through for a holiday flight or connection, airports at heart are essentially ‘cities unto themselves’. Major airports often become 24-hour epicentres of commerce, transport and even recreational activity. And, just like a city, they cannot function by themselves, requiring a strong link with roads and resources to see their effective operation occur day by day.

Major Destinations Need Major Infrastructure

Supporting infrastructure can be all-important to not only the operation of an airport but the region that surrounds it. This is true of any mega complex; true of Saint Lucia’s new airport, true of the Grantley Adams Airport in Barbados which was flagged for upgrade in late 2018, and even true of other facilities like the Thomas Santucci Jr., MD Cardiovascular Interventional Suite, the new private wing in the Jamaica Hospital Medical Center. Put simply, where major populations will go, strong logistical support must follow.

It’s why airports like Baltimore’s Washington International (BWI) have won acclaim and become passenger favourites. BWI is outside Washington DC’s main hub (and the city’s closer National Airport) but is less busy and offers an easy train ride into the city plus numerous amenities, including great food and even bicycle hire, which have helped ensure the traveller’s experience is a pleasant one. Even relatively simple upgrades like free Wi-Fi within the airport and its immediate surrounds, like the car park, can go a long way to boosting passenger experience.

Airports also have an essential consideration due to their population and use: the effective access of emergency services. This is often seen as the starting point and most important area where an airport’s supporting infrastructure and services will be tested. It is also where the partnership between public and private sectors can be so valuable. Public resources that would otherwise be spent on services within the airport when run by government departments exclusively can be freed up for use elsewhere — in the airport and beyond — when a private stake exists in the facility. 

Given the need for public safety and access, governments will always have an important role to play within the aviation sector. 14% of airports worldwide have some privatisation already, so growth can be anticipated in this area, especially considering the diminished reliance upon public money that many airports are experiencing as their profits and resources grow.

Land, Sea and Air

The Hewanorra International Airport upgrade comes at a time when Saint Lucia’s government is planning a new cruise ship terminal in Vieux Fort. This would mean that road upgrades become a crucial consideration not only for the airport, but for the new port too if the upgrade goes ahead.

In the 2018 budget the Chastanet government outlined a plan to upgrade road infrastructure alongside improvements in housing, water supply, and more. Central to the road plans were thoroughfares to the airport and the Castries port. The funding for this was flagged to come from a mix of investment avenues, including public-private partnerships. With the 2019 budget looming, keen eyes will be on Castries to see the government’s latest work in this arena, and what further detail surrounding infrastructure funding may be put forward.

Getting a Green Light for Take-off

These upgrades are undoubtedly terrific, and come following a period when Saint Lucia has seen its tourism numbers go from strength to strength over successive years. The excitement that so many Saint Lucians feel about this new era is not only understandable, but commendable. The airport upgrade is a landmark symbol of a new chapter for the local business community, and the nation as a whole.

The excitement notwithstanding, more traffic of all kinds, from planes in the sky to vehicles travelling to and from the airport on the roads, can give rise to new environmental problems. This is something that has been considered and accounted for with the present phase of the upgrade. But going forward, as volume grows at the airport in years ahead, this will become an ongoing consideration. Especially as (though this should be important to any nation in the 21st century) so much of Saint Lucia’s appeal in the tourism market is built upon its natural beauty and environment, alongside the warmth of its people and culture. Maintaining these assets today isn’t just clean and green policy, but a matter of common sense for ongoing profitability in the tourism sector.

All up, it’s undoubtedly a promising, new chapter for Saint Lucian business and travel. It’s just also crucial to ensure the progress already made and the promise on offer that saw this airport upgrade confirmed, serve as a continued foundation, and one the nation can indeed build on in future as it seeks to reach new heights with the Hewanorra airport upgrade.