I bought a ticket from Havana (Cuba) to Nassau (Bahams). The airline was Bahamasair. Few hours after my purchase I received a confirmation. On the day of flight I went to the airport 4 hours in advanced, because in Cuba everything takes time and Cuban is known for his arbitrariness and laziness. In my confirmation from Bahamasair was written that my flight is going to leave from terminal 1. However, neither was my flight on any destination board nor knew any airport stuff anything about it. After a while I figured out that Bahamasair normally operated from terminal 2. As a result I took a taxi to terminal 2 (don’t forget it’s Cuba and building and maintaining an airport is totally conceptless). Same thing here. Nobody in terminal 2 knew anything about my flight. So I called the airline. The friendly employee from Bahamasair customer service told me that there is no flight on that date. I asked her why it was possible to buy a ticket and why I got a confirmation. She answered that this happened because of a computer error and she had to check how does a refund works. As a result I booked another flight with another company, which left 2 hours after my original Bahamasair flight. While I was waiting on my new flight I saw my old Bahamasair flight taxing to the runway. It turned out that even thought I got confirmation from Bahamasair customer service that there is no flight on this day, there was one. Talking again with Bahamasair to figure out why their customer service was laying to my and when I get my refund, they told me that they normally not operate on that day, but my flight was an exception and because this flight happened a refund is not possible.

Bahamas air really need to work on on time performance. In Fort Lauder dale we waited about 45 minutes before our flight come. When we boarded the flight the plane was really untidy. Broken arm rest, and a lot of gum on safety cards. The flight attendants didn't serve no drinks, only a mint which was very chewy and was not enjoyable. The best part of the flight was the landing which was very smooth.

I've been flying BahamasAir on a regular basis since childhood and have always had a safe, enjoyable experience. Flights can be somewhat prone to delay due to tropical weather, but they're certainly no worse than any American airline. Due to all the island-hops they do, the pilots are famed for their exceptional takeoff and landing skills, so much so that it's common for American pilots to do training with the carrier. It helps to understand Bahamian culture before buying a ticket. Bahamians are very laidback, polite, and community-oriented. If you're on a flight filled with Bahamians and it's running a little behind schedule, odds are good that you will be the only person greatly upset. Everyone else is going to chalk it up to life and not stress over it. You're not going to be able to pay for a first-class seat, and indeed, you're likely going to get some side-eye if you're at the front and won't swap your seat with an elderly person or pregnant woman boarding behind you. BahamasAir has never experienced a crash, and domestic flights don't go more than 10,000-15,000 feet up in most cases, so it's a good fit for worriers. And best of all, every tenth flight is free.

If you can afford to be late, then by all means, take this airline. But if you want to be somewhere on time, don't ever ever ever book with this airline. Let me tell you my nightmare. I booked thru Kayak, which supposedly used Vayama (yeah, what company?) to book the trip. A 9am departure out of Newark, arriving at 11:55am in Freeport, Bahamas - direct flight. A few days before the trip, I get an alert notifying me that the departure time is now 6am - and my departure out of the Bahamas 5 days later is now 4 hours later. Fine, no big deal, a little early, but whatever. The day we leave, we arrived at Newark and waited about 20 minutes to check-in - for 10 people. Why so long? Because Bahamasair does not have kiosks, or even computers to check people in. They are literally looking at the name on my passport and then looking through a stapled booklet of paper to find my name on the manifest. Which, of course, my fiancee and I are not on. "What do you mean we're not on the manifest? Here is our confirmation number." Employee: "Nope, sorry." Employee calls HQ and apparently we're still not in the database. But he throws us on there anyway. So that was lucky I guess? We breeze through security - it's 5am mind you - and then wait in the terminal. 6am hits, we're not boarding. Of course, how could we if everyone is still checking in! 7:30 hits - "Sorry folks, we still need to fuel the plane." Hmm, wouldn't that be a good thing to do 2 hours ago?! 7:45 hits they board infants and children. Then 10 minutes later, "It's gonna be another 30 minutes before we can board everyone else." Um what? So a bunch of infants and their parents are just going to sit there? 10 minutes pass and they finally board the rest of us. We take off at what time? 9am. Maybe Kayak knew about this hassle which is why they said 9am in the first place. Coming back from Freeport, we called the airline in the morning to make sure we were on the flight. (Originally supposed to be 4pm, but changed to 7:40 just like our outgoing flight.) Luckily we were on the manifest. We get to the airport about 2.5 hours before our departure time. We check-in (with computers!) and there is no security line. But - they put me 1A, and my fiancee in 1F, apart from each other! If we're checking in together, don't you think we'd want to sit together?! So 7:00pm hits, 40 mins before our departure time. I can see the plane and the crew just about ready to go. 7:40 comes and goes, no boarding, no announcement. I ask why we haven't boarded yet. Employee: "Oh the computers are down, so we have to manually check everyone in for your flight." We finally board around 9pm. The only benefit: my fiancee and I were essentially in first class with oversize seats, a ton of legroom and the first off the plane. We are now sitting at the gate but the main door is still open. And it remains open for the next 30-40 minutes. Why? Because they have more paperwork to do. Really? You couldn't have done that paperwork while we waited for the past 3 hours?!?! Finally we takeoff just before 10. Arrived in Newark around 12:30am - 2 hours late. I will say this - the flight itself was great and the flight attendants were super friendly and understanding. A direct flight is nice from Freeport, but I would have much rather had a short layover in Miami or Ft. Lauderdale than experience the epic delays.