-as runway light woes continue
Runway light woes continued at the Cheddi Jagan Inter-national Airport yesterday as airlines were restricted to daylight flights and last night’s flights were cancelled. Officials were struggling to find suitable alternatives following major transformer and cable damage from lightning, most recently on Monday, which caused the lights to go out.
Speaking with this newspaper late yesterday afternoon, airport Chief Executive Officer Ramesh Ghir reporterd that the runway lights were still down and would not be operational last night.
According to Ghir engineers were working around the clock, but he cautioned that the damage was severe and so repairing it would be a tedious process.
He explained too that the airport’s management was in discussion with the manufacturer of the runway lights who had given the opinion that the amount and frequency of lightning to which the runway lights’ cables had been exposed may have caused them to become degraded.
He said the advice of the manufacturers would continue to be sought while a number of other options which he did not disclose were being explored.
Asked whether the airlines had been informed about the status of the repairs, Ghir responded that management had been briefing all stakeholders and updating them on the progress of the work.
Meanwhile, Caribbean Airlines has been feeling the brunt of the inconvenience although Country Manager Carlton DeFour was yesterday hopeful that he would get some good word from the officials concerned.
Defour in an invited comment to this newspaper said so far the non-functioning lights were proving a major inconvenience. He noted that Monday night’s flights had to be delayed so the aircraft could operate in the daylight.
“It’s a major inconvenience for us, particularly for those passengers coming in from Miami that already have to wait a long time in Piarco before they come across. So I am hoping that something is done,” DeFour said.
Meantime, he stated that the airline was trying to manage its day flights and ensure that these were always on time.
Asked about the future of the airline’s night flights, DeFour said that he was waiting to find out what systems would be put in place and whether or not the airport would go the way of suspending night flights until everything got back to normal.
Liat chose to postpone its flights on Monday night. A representative from the airline explained to this newspaper yesterday that the latest flight leaves Guyana at 6.30pm, although yesterday it was forced to postpone this flight as well. The representative said that while the passengers were disappointed in the delay, they mostly understood that it was not directly the fault of the airline.
This newspaper was told by a passenger that he had made calls to the airline at around 2 yesterday afternoon and had been advised that he should make his way up to the airport as soon as possible since the airline was trying to take out some passengers from 6.30 flight on an earlier one.
He said by the time he reached the airport he was told that the flight had been cancelled causing him major inconvenience. He complained that there had obviously been a breakdown of communication at some level since during the course of yesterday the airline had given the assurance that the flights were still on.
According to him, other passengers were left in the same situation and angered by the fact that the airline did not do better in informing its passengers of the cancellation.
Delta Airlines, on the other hand, remains unaffected by the current situation, because all its flights in and out of Guyana are scheduled for daylight hours, Manager Junior Horatio told this newspaper yesterday in an invited comment.
Following heavy lightning on July 22 the lights on the Air Traffic Control Tower were completely out of power for a few hours after a transformer and the stand-by generator developed radiator problems.
Last Thursday the lights went out again, and while attempts were made to have the lights up and running, the airport CEO in a brief interview with this newspaper on Saturday admitted that the system was still not up 100 per cent.
He had also said that a complete review of the system was planned. As of next week, air traffic is expected to build up as thousands of persons from different countries are expected here for Carifesta which starts on August 22.
