The Cayman Islands Airports Authority has gone back to the market for an expansion of aircraft parking at Owen Roberts International Airport, after a tender for a new general aviation apron, heliport and marine dock, which closed to bids in April 2025, was cancelled and the Government turned to the private sector for the terminal that was meant to sit beside it.

The request for proposals, reference PPC-2026-CIAA-074-RFP, opened on the Government's Bonfire procurement portal on 12 October. Headed Airport Commercial Apron, General Aviation Overflow Apron and Code E Taxiway Project, it invites "open proposals from qualified Contractors" and closes at 2pm on 27 January 2027, with questions from bidders due by 4 December.

The Authority says it "is seeking to undertake improvements to both commercial operations and General Aviation (GA) apron operations" at the airport. The work comprises "an extension of the existing commercial apron to incorporate three (3) code C stands, to construct a GA overflow apron, improved apron access with a new Code E taxiway and a groundside access road with associated utilities". Code C stands take narrow-body airliners of the kind that operate most of Cayman's scheduled services, while a Code E taxiway is built for wide-body aircraft.

The notice states that "the CIAA intends to immediately proceed to a construction phase commencing the proposed work, subject to government approvals, during 2nd Qtr. 2027". The published record carries no estimated contract value.

A second attempt at the apron

The project is the second time in two years that the Authority has sought a contractor for general aviation parking at Owen Roberts. In February 2024 it awarded a design consultancy for a "General Aviation Parking Apron, Heliport and Marine Dock Project", and its board minutes of 30 May 2024 record that the "apron/heliport/dock design contract has been awarded to Avia NG". A construction tender for the same project, reference PPC-2024-CIAA-084-RFP, followed with a bid deadline of 25 April 2025. The portal now lists that tender as cancelled. No reason for the cancellation is given on the public record and the Authority has not published one.

That tender was part of a wider plan inherited from the previous administration. In May 2023 the Government announced four airport projects approved by Cabinet, among them "$42M to build a new General Aviation Facility" at Owen Roberts, within a package the then Minister for Tourism and Ports, Kenneth Bryan MP, put at "$76M". The works were to be paid for by raising the terminal fee from CI$1 to CI$5 and introducing a CI$15 airport development fee during a construction period "estimated to take place between 2024 and 2029".

The figure came from the Authority's airports master plan and outline business case, completed in September 2023, which set an "affordability envelope" of CI$42 million for what it called Project A1, to "relocate and upgrade the GA terminal/aircraft parking to the North Sound site". The same document put the aggregate capital cost of all four projects it assessed at CI$653 million in 2022 dollars, before optimism bias.

Why the business case rejected a partnership

The 2023 business case considered and set aside a public-private partnership for the airport works. It recorded that revenue from the projects "would be hard to distinguish from the business-as-usual or 'do nothing' option revenues", so that "it may be more complex to pass on-demand risk to a private sector partner", and that a partnership "would likely involve lengthier procurement timelines versus a traditional process". It noted the Authority's intention at the time to fund the works "through its own revenues, surpluses and, where necessary, CIG debt". The steering committee chose a conventional design, bid, build route.

The current Government has taken a different course on the terminal. On 19 February 2026 Cabinet "approved the update of the 2023 Outline Business Case for the General Aviation Terminal Project", according to its published post-meeting summary. On 29 April the Authority issued a request for expressions of interest, reference CIAA GA REOI 04292026, for the general aviation facility at Owen Roberts, which closed on 29 June.

The partnership route has a longer policy history. The Office of the Auditor General, in a February 2025 report on long-term financial sustainability, noted that the National Tourism Plan 2024 "identifies several activities that may have long-term financial consequences, such as establishing a public-private partnership to construct a new general aviation terminal".

The effect of the new tender is to separate the paving from the building. The overflow apron, the commercial stands and the taxiway are to be procured by the Authority as a conventional construction contract, while the terminal that would serve the private jets using that apron is to be the subject of a partnership whose terms have not been published. The RFP does not say whether users of the overflow apron will contribute to its cost through fees or charges.

Parking three and four deep

The case for more apron space is set out in the Authority's own planning documents. The 2023 master plan found that the general aviation apron "can be very congested in peak periods of the year, particularly December through January, and the spring-break (February to March) peak tourist periods, with aircraft parked three and four-deep". It said the fixed-base operator "has been known to park aircraft wingtip to wingtip", a practice that "leads to an increase in aircraft incidents which require costly repairs and delay operations".

The plan concluded that future demand "should accommodate at least forty (40) aircraft on the ramp", and recommended phasing the expansion so that the Authority could "delay expansion should the demand dwindle from past peaks". On the commercial side, it reported that airlines "have indicated that during peak periods, there are not enough aircraft stands and gates".

Passenger traffic has continued to grow since the plan was written. The Department of Tourism reported on 25 September that stayover arrivals between January and August this year reached 361,192, an increase of 11 per cent on the same period in 2025.

Mangrove condition already attached

Part of the airport's shoreline is zoned as mangrove buffer, and the Authority's consultants have already been through the planning process for apron works on the site. On 29 April 2025 the Central Planning Authority granted permission to AMR Consulting Engineers, on behalf of the Authority, for an "apron extension, generator, utility building" on Block 20C Parcel 78, a CI$1.2 million application that drew one objection.

The permission is conditional on the applicant submitting "a detailed mitigation plan for the review and approval of the Department of Environment" setting out "measures to help offset the related impacts to the mangrove habitat, including but not limited to, replanting, habitat restoration or other compensatory actions", before any clearing, filling or grading begins. The Department of Environment told the planning board that the site is "man-modified and of limited ecological value", although its northeast corner "contains tidally flooded mangrove forest and woodland" and roughly 2,200 feet of coastline is zoned as buffer.

The new RFP does not state whether the works now tendered fall within that permission or will require a fresh application. Its reference to "government approvals" before construction can begin in the second quarter of 2027 is not elaborated.

The Authority's capacity to fund major projects from its own resources has been the subject of audit comment. In a report published in July 2026 on its 2021 accounts, the Auditor General found the Authority had not established the reserve fund required of it, "limiting its ability to plan and fund major capital projects over the long-term". Management said reserves had since recovered.

Bids will be assessed under the Government's public procurement rules, with the Authority's stated intention to move directly to construction once a contractor is selected. The outcome of the separate partnership process for the terminal has not been announced.