Commercial Fixed Wing
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP); Flight Crew Instrument; Flight Crew Multiengine
Situational Awareness; Confusion; Communication Breakdown
ATC Issue All Types; Airspace Violation All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
Air Traffic Control Issued New Clearance; Flight Crew Requested ATC Assistance / Clarification
Human Factors; Procedure; Chart Or Publication; Company Policy
I was operating Aircraft X to MYAM airport in the Bahamas and back. It's the first time I was doing such a flight. I studied company memos pertaining to this flight and reviewed the FOM and Jeppeson pages for it. I even called our duty pilot to ask if there is anything abnormal crews have experienced doing this kind of flight. He told me only issues have been with passengers and customs but otherwise no. I arrived at the aircraft and we were delayed because of an inbound flight attendant. I remembered that the airport is only open from sunrise to sunset and after looking up official sunset in the Bahamas realized there was a chance of conflict there.I called Company and voiced my concern and asked what company policy was to deal with this and the dispatcher put me on the phone with the Flight Manager who assured me everything was ok and that they called the station and made proper arrangements. Outside of some unique operational aspects and some minor MELs the flight proceeded uneventfully. We landed in MYAM and turned the aircraft around as the sun was setting. We taxied out and held short of the runway for some inbound aircraft to land making reports on the CTAF. Once we knew final was clear we pulled onto the runway which had lights and by this time it was quite dark out. Per company SOP we departed VFR and began to contact Nassau radio to pick up a clearance during the climb out. The communications were intermittent and the person on Nassau radio seemed a bit confused but after a few transmissions gave me another frequency for Nassau who then gave us a squawk code and clearance. The flight then proceeded uneventfully. We received an ACARS message to call Company on the ground which we figured was for giving them out/on times because of no ACARS signal in the Bahamas.I called and gave them the times and then the dispatcher transferred me over to the manager who told me we have been violated by ATC in the Bahamas for operating VFR after sunset. I was shocked because there was nothing in our company material that stated anything about this and I also voiced a concern about night operations and was assured by the company everything was taken care of. There was a lack of research and diligence establishing operations and providing proper company materials and SOP's. Our Company should have a better system of going in and establishing a newer operation. This is a pretty big detail that was overlooked. And instead of using crews as experiments I expect a large Part 121 operation to have most areas of an operation covered especially one as obvious as operating past sunset. Also have our [materials] for special operations airports like the Bahamas have more information in one spot not just some certificates and then have to go to the company website to obtain an old memo then go to the FOM for other bits of information. The First Officer and I did a large amount of homework on this and even discussed the day prior some threats and errors about it. We planned as much as we could and talked about many different points and even called Company with concerns about sunset and still are now dealing with a violation!
Air Carrier Captain reported they were violated for departing VFR from a non-towered airport in a foreign country.