Bermuda will have to look for outside funding to pay for a new airport, MPs were told on Friday.

Tourism and Transport Minister Shawn Crockwell said that a modernised airport would cost hundreds of millions of dollars — money Government did not have.

“What the Government wants to do and what Government is committed to doing is create a better airport, a new airport, so it can be modern and complement the product we want for our guests when they come here,” he said.

But Mr Crockwell added: “This is an issue of affordability ... so that is what is primarily driving the decisions of the Government and the options we are looking at.”

He was speaking after Opposition MP Lawrence Scott, the shadow Minister for Tourism and Transport, introduced a motion to debate the advantages of establishing an Airport Authority to run the Island’s air terminal.

The Shadow Transport Minister said the 43 jobs in the Department of Airport Operations would be put at risk if a public-private partnership assumed stewardship of Bermuda’s airport, telling the House such an investor would “get rid of them because they wouldn’t know them”.

He added that privatisation meant a profit-driven administration — and there was nothing to stop management giving themselves enormous salaries, while shedding workers.

On the subject of an Airport Authority, Mr Scott said that “almost all” of the jurisdictions competing with Bermuda handled their visitors through an Airport Authority.

Mr Crockwell said a number of methods could be used to get funding for the airport — including a public-private partnership, which would involve a private operator being given a 30-40 year lease to modernise and run the airport.

And he said negotiations with any private investor could include negotiating protection for the existing Government-employed staff.

Finance Minister Bob Richards added the airport was being “held together by Band-Aids”.

He added: “We need to have an airport that is consistent with the global brand which is Bermuda — a brand we hope denotes high quality and high services.

“If the Government can’t afford to build it ourselves, we going to have to get outside investors and that will require some kind of creativity — probably a public-private partnership of some sort.”

But he ruled out and outright sell-off of the airport to a private body.

Shadow Finance Minister said Government should not lose control of “a prized Government asset”.

And Opposition leader Marc Bean added that any airport redevelopment should be done in tandem with improving access and replacing the ageing Causeway — although he said that the cost of that should be borne by the entire country, rather than the people of the east end of the Island.