Is it a normal occurrence for what I assume to be a significant airport in a major tourist area to run out of fuel?
No, but it usually makes a nice fabricated excuse to blame if a low budget accounting office didn't keep up with their contracts overseas.
Fact checking difficulties make the excuse tough to check out.
My airline didn't appear to have difficulties, but the route to the colonies is substantially shorter and nobody needed 100,000 lbs+ for a -300
