A taxi cab driver in Nassau who regularly traverses the islands of the Bahamas by air had praise for Bahamasair, which connects 13 domestic destinations. "The service is out of this world," he said. However, when told the airline is considering starting flights from Nassau to Los Angeles and Vancouver, he professed skepticism. "They'll need new planes for that," he said. "I wish them the best, but their old planes won't be good enough and I don't know if the government will let them buy new planes.' The cab driver, a native Bahamian-"Why would I ever move away from here," he said while gesturing to palm trees waving in an ocean breeze under clear blue skies-is like many people in the Caribbean. He depends on air travel to move from island to island, but is well aware of the shortcomings of airline service in the Caribbean. The aircraft are old, and connecting between two different Caribbean nations often means having to take the time to fly to a major US hub, such as Miami or Atlanta, for a connection to an island that would be under an hour's flight away-if there were direct service.
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