Hummingbird Air Managing Director Sam Raphael says several factors caused suspension of its services

​Hummingbird Air Managing Director Sam Raphael says several factors such as dramatic increases in airport fees in the US Virgin Islands last month, have caused the suspension of its services, effective 1st April 2017. He says the company is now in negotiation with a new management group.
 
Raphael added that another contributing factor, is that he is unable to allocate sufficient time towards the day to day running of the airline, since he is presently occupied with the reconstruction of the Jungle Bay Resort, which was destroyed by Tropical Storm Erika in the Delices area in 2015, and which is now intended to be rebuilt in the Soufriere area.
 
He stated that the airline service ran “very well” in its early stages, but after Erik ravaged Dominica, it greatly affected Jungle Bay Resort and so ample time and energy had to be focused on bringing operations at the resort back to normalcy.
 
He believes the decision to suspend the aviation service is the “right and necessary move”, from an economic perspective. He added, “it is unfortunate that we had to make the change for both the staff and our customers, but at this point, I think it is the right move to make and from an economic standpoint, it was necessary”. Raphael said “the assets are still there” and the “company is still valuable”, but he does not know exactly what is going to happen in the future, in terms of the possible reopening of the aviation service.
 
The airline had voluntarily suspended its passenger service in November 2015 after a landing incident in St. Lucia. The St. Lucia incident and an earlier Barbuda incident were both attributed to pilot error. Hummingbird Air began commercial flights to the Canefield Airport from the US Virgin Islands in 2014. Flights to St. Lucia were added after that.