least a year, Transport Minister the Hon. Maxwell Burgess announced yesterday.

The Airport's general manager, operations manager, and financial comptroller will be brought to Bermuda as part of a one-year $600,000 contract with the Vancouver International Airport Authority, Mr. Burgess said at a news conference.

The three Canadians will have Bermudian understudies, who have not been selected and whose salaries are not included in the contract, he said.

The two other top Airport management jobs in the new Department of Airport Operations -- air terminal manager and facilities manager -- will go directly to Bermudians, Mr. Burgess said. They have not yet been named.

"The challenge of taking over and running an international airport is, as I am sure you can appreciate, a complex task -- something that Bermuda has had no experience in,'' the Minister said.

"Up to now, the Ministry of Transport's responsibilities at the Airport were restricted to simply running the terminal building.'' That was why Government was entering into "a multi-faceted relationship'' with the Vancouver authority. While providing instant airport management expertise, the company would also be able to train, he said.

The contract has options to be extended for one or two years. "Whether the options are exercised will depend on (the contractor's) performance and the readiness of the Bermudian team,'' he said.

Since taking over Vancouver International Airport from Transport Canada in 1992, the contractor has made Vancouver's airport authority the most profitable in Canada, Mr. Burgess said.

As part of the contract, it will develop a Bermudian airport manual, management policies and procedures, and plans for airport safety, security, and disaster readiness.

"To produce these necessary documents and policies from scratch would be very expensive and time-consuming.'' With Government facing over $17 million in new airport costs next year alone, the company will also work to maximise airport revenues, he said.

Acting Airport manager Mr. Donald Dane was expected to return to the Island from Vancouver yesterday. The Vancouver experts, two men and a woman, should arrive on the Island within the next two to three weeks, Mr. Burgess said.

For the immediate future, the Airport's general manager will report directly to the Transport Minister, he said. It has not yet been decided when or if Bermuda will create its own Airport Authority as a quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisation (quango), he said.

The contract with the Vancouver International Airport Authority is separate from a 5-year, $4.4 million a year air operations contract with Serco Aviation Services Inc. of Canada, and a three-year infrastructure contract which has yet to be awarded. See story , Page 2 .

Details on the structure of the Department of Civil Aviation, which is to be separate from the Department of Air Operations, are to be announced in the future.