Getting around NAS
Nassau does something almost no other Caribbean airport does: it clears US Customs and Border Protection before boarding, not after landing, and that one fact is what splits LPIA into three terminals — named by what happens in them, not by a letter or number. The US Departures Terminal, a $198 million building opened in March 2011 with 55 check-in counters, is where every US-bound passenger completes American immigration and customs on Bahamian soil. The International & Domestic Departures and Domestic Arrivals Terminal, finished in 2013, handles everyone else leaving the country plus domestic arrivals. And the International & U.S. Arrivals Terminal, opened in 2012 with five jet bridges, receives every landing flight — a passenger off a flight from Miami and one off a flight from Madrid both clear the same Bahamas Immigration and Customs line here, the mirror image of the preclearance split that only applies to departures. Nassau Airport Development Company, a self-sustaining private company on a 30-year government lease, delivered all three terminals in a redevelopment finished in 2013 and reported 3.7 million passengers for FY2023 — still short of the 4 million it carried in FY2019. Taxis charge fixed, published fares by neighbourhood rather than a meter, and two parking lots cover 2,203 spaces.
