BermudAir’s founder and chief executive is calling its first year in Anguilla a fantastic, runaway success. Adam Scott told The Royal Gazette the key has been collaboration

“We worked tirelessly with the Anguilla airport operators, with the tourism authorities and with all the hotels on the island,” he said. “It was a massive undertaking.”

Now he is replicating that model in Turks & Caicos, Cayman, Belize and, eventually, Guatemala, with ten new Airbus A220s.

The order for the new aircraft was officially announced at the Farnborough International Airshow in Britain last week. The new planes can fly farther and seat more people than BermudAir’s other Embraer aircraft.

“They have more modern passenger comforts such as bigger windows,” Mr Scott said. “When you are flying into Bermuda you can get a better view of those fantastic corals as we’re approaching paradise. Similarly, you can get a better view of Midtown Manhattan when you’re flying out of Westchester, New York.”

Mr Scott said for now, the new planes are meant to complement the old ones, but in the long term it makes more sense to consolidate around one aircraft type, the A220.

The list price for these aircraft is $90 million each, but airlines routinely negotiate deals well below the list price for aircraft. Mr Scott declined to say how the purchase was being financed.

BermudAir said Mr Scott was one of the first customers interested in the A220, years ago when it was still the Bombardier C-series. It has been his vision to secure this fleet from the beginning.

Purchasing the new aircraft was a natural progression.

“We have had an order book with Airbus for a long time,” Mr Scott said. “This was just crystallising delivery dates.”

The first of the new purchases are scheduled to arrive by the end of next year.

The major origin market for the new routes will be Bermuda, the United States and Canada.

The firm recently moved to new office space on the corner of Church Street and Cedar Avenue. Having started the year with about 130 employees, BermudAir will have more than 200 by the end of the year.

“Most of our employees don’t work in the office,” Mr Scott said. “We have pilots and cabin crew, and so forth. The vast majority are based here in Bermuda.”

BermudAir is seeing “encouraging” interest in travel between Bermuda and Anguilla. It is hoped that residents in the new destinations will also enjoy BermudAir’s services to Bermuda and North America.

“We remain focused on operating in a way that supports long-term, sustainable connectivity,” Mr Scott stated.

He predicted that in the next few years BermudAir will be flying to a number of other islands as well. With the new aircraft able to go longer distances, even the American Midwest is a possibility.

“That means that we will be able to add new markets to our Bermuda network as well, especially in the peak seasonal market,” he said. “That should be really exciting for Bermuda because this is BermudAir’s home. This is our base. This is where it all starts.”