Scientific and survey work in the Bahamas happens in places commercial aviation does not go, and charter aircraft are frequently the only sensible way to reach them. The islands draw a steady stream of marine research, seabed and aggregate survey work, environmental monitoring and university field programs, and almost all of it is somewhere awkward.
Andros and its barrier reef, the blue holes, the deep water off the Tongue of the Ocean, and the shallow banks around the Exumas and the Berry Islands are all a long way from a scheduled service. A charter flight can put a team and its equipment on a small island airstrip before noon.
Aircraft for Field Work
Helicopters, turboprops and jets each solve a different part of the problem. Turboprops handle the shorter Out Island runways that jets cannot use. Helicopters reach sites with no runway at all. Larger aircraft move a full field team and its gear in one lift, and full-aircraft cargo charter handles equipment that is too heavy, too fragile or too valuable to send any other way.
Passenger counts run from a single surveyor up to more than two hundred, and we will size the aircraft to the team and the airstrip rather than the other way around.
Getting Equipment In
Every flight between the United States and the Bahamas is international, so every passenger needs a valid passport and your first landing has to be at a designated airport of entry, where Bahamas Customs and Immigration clear the aircraft. Specialist equipment crossing a border needs its paperwork in order, and it is worth telling us what you are carrying early rather than at the ramp.
Landing permits are generally applied for after a trip has been secured on the aircraft schedule, and sometimes the timeline is dictated by the local airport authorities.
Confidentiality
Survey results, sample movements and site locations are commercially sensitive, and flight itineraries are shared strictly on a need-to-know basis. Additional security arrangements for arrival and departure can be made where a project calls for them.
Tell us where the work is and what is going with you, and we will tell you what can land there. Start with a quote.