For years, The Bahamas worked hard to persuade private pilots to visit, promoting its airports, organizing fly-ins and offering travel incentives. Now, many of those same aircraft operators are receiving unexpectedly steep retroactive bills for flights dating back more than five years. Private flights in single-engine piston aircraft are exempt, along with search-and-rescue missions, emergency medical flights, certain emergency landings and government or military aircraft. The official Bahamas tourism website is still offering incentives to visiting pilots. One current promotion gives private pilots arriving from the US or Canada a $100 hotel credit.