The taxpayer will have to pay out almost $3.5 million to airport operator Skyport to make up for a shortfall in revenue — bringing the total to almost $50 million.

Lawrence Scott, the Minister of Transport, told the House of Assembly today that income for the second quarter of the year was $3,474,927.53 short of the minimum revenue guarantee that Skyport had been promised when it took over operations at the new LF Wade International Airport in 2020.

Mr Scott said the project agreement signed between Skyport and the airport authority had so far cost almost $50 million, and that further shortfalls were anticipated for the rest of this year.

Mr Scott told MPs: “On July 8, Skyport provided the airport authority with a formal notice of the shortfall of $3,474,927.53 between the actual airport-regulated revenue collected for the period from the April 1, 2022 to June 30, 2022 and the guaranteed minimum regulated revenue for the same period.

“In late 2021, I advised the House that the project agreement contains a predetermined schedule of the guaranteed minimum regulated revenue amounts for each calendar quarter of the 30-year contract.

“The Government continues to honour its obligations in this regard, including making this latest minimum revenue guarantee payment of $3,474,927.53 to Skyport.

“To date, we have made seven minimum revenue guarantee payments to Skyport totalling $47,392,811.82 including this payment.

“Although we are trending in the right direction — each quarterly payment has been lower than the previous year’s quarterly payment — even with the increased air routes and passenger traffic we anticipate that minimum revenue guarantee payments for the remainder of 2022 and into early 2023 to be approximately $5 million.”