Why Halifax?
That was the question at HBB after BermudAir, a privately owned start-up airline, said this week it will begin operating a weekly flight between Halifax and Bermuda. Halifax will be by far the smallest of the seven metro areas served by the carrier when the flights commence in May.
The new route should not surprise anyone, said Pat Phillip-Fairn, BermudAir’s head of public relations and corporate affairs. Halifax and Bermuda, a self-governing British territory 1,400 kilometers south of Nova Scotia's capital, have had business ties for two centuries, and there is a tradition of Bermudian parents sending children to the province for their education.
“There are longstanding links between Bermuda and Halifax from the perspective of schools and colleges,” Phillip-Fairn said via email. "Many Bermudian students attend university in Nova Scotia in particular, as well as boarding school. BermudAir re-establishing direct service has been very well-received by local (Bermuda) families in this regard."
Bermuda, a 54-square-kilometer island with just 64,000 residents, ranked 17th of 130 countries that sent students to Dalhousie University in the 2019-2020 academic year. The 42 students with Bermudian citizenship were more than the 37 U.K.-passported students who attended the Halifax school that year. King's-Edgehill School of Windsor, Nova Scotia, whose founding in 1788 makes it Canada's oldest boarding school, has sent recruiters to Bermuda.
Butterfield in Halifax
Among financial companies with back offices in Halifax is Bank of N.T. Butterfield & Son Ltd., Bermuda's biggest local bank. Butterfield, based in the capital, Hamilton, set up shop in Halifax in 2006, at which time the Globe and Mail newspaper reported the bank would hire 400 people over seven years. As of last year, the number of Butterfield employees in Halifax did not exceed 364, which was the total number of the bank's employees listed as working outside Bermuda, the U.K. and the Cayman Islands. The 2023 annual report said Butterfield, which has downtown offices on Hollis Street, continues to expand its presence in the city.
Other historical Halifax-Bermuda connections include the first communications cable to Bermuda, which was laid in 1890 and originated in Halifax, and shipping services established by the Canadian government between Halifax and Bermuda in the 1920s. A pilgrimage for some Canadian visitors is the gravesite of a Halifax surgeon who died at the age of 32 on a ship off Bermuda's northern coast in 1846, and, as recently as four years ago, Haligonians anxious to satisfy a donair craving apparently could get the classic Halifax meat sandwich in Bermuda.
BermudAir's service from Halifax Stanfield International Airport will begin May 25 and be flown Saturdays on Embraer 175 aircraft with 14 business seats and 52 economy seats. BermudAir, based at L.F. Wade International Airport, already serves Boston; Baltimore; Fort Lauderdale; Westchester County, New York; and Orlando. Bermudair will also offer flights to Toronto beginning in May.
The ownership group behind BermudAir includes "many of Bermuda’s leading business people and U.S.-based investors with significant ties to Bermuda," Phillip-Fairn said, declining to be more specific. The company is led by Chief Executive Adam Scott, a Toronto native and former Goldman Sachs banker. A previous Scott venture, the London-based premium-class carrier called Odyssey Airlines, was founded about a decade ago but never got off the ground. BermudAir was also conceived as an all business-class airline, but the idea was shelved six weeks after starting operations.
Air Canada flew between Halifax and Bermuda but discontinued the route in 2013, Phillip-Fairn said.
Halifax earned a mention after millions of documents released in 2017 linked the city to worldwide efforts to help wealthy people evade billions of dollars in taxes.
--HBB
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