The Public Works Ministry is awaiting clarifications from the defunct REDjet before payments can be made to the 2,500-odd passengers who were affected by the collapse of the regional airline.
The ministry, which has responsibility for Transport, has been working with the regional airline office in Barbados to ensure that the 846 requests for repayments from locals materialise. Persons had also made applications for their refunds via the airline soon after it collapsed this year.
Principal Assistant Secre-tary at the Works Ministry, Derrick Jodhan told Stabroek News that the US$200,000 ($40 million) bond which the airline lodged with the authorities here when it was set up was sufficient to reimburse the passengers.
He explained yesterday that the ministry dispatched a list of persons, many of whom paid for tickets as a group or as a family, to the airline offices in order to verify the information provided by passengers. He said REDjet responded by sending two lists of persons; one list included persons who it agreed to be repaid and another which “it could not verify”.
He said the ministry compiled additional information to the second list and this was forwarded to the airline. He said the first list represented more than 75% of the persons who are to be reimbursed but according to him, while the Works Ministry is prepared to refund those passengers “tomorrow, the next day or next week”, the legality of making such a payment may be questioned.
He elaborated that the passengers who are being disputed by the airline could “feel cheated and may take legal action,” and as such, the agency is working to ensure that the situation is corrected as soon as possible.
He said another scenario which was impacting the process was that some passengers had made requests directly to the airline when it was experiencing the problems which led to its collapse.
Jodhan noted that there were some 826 requests for repayments which translated to more than 3,000 persons initially but following several computations, the number of persons was narrowed down to approximately 2,500.
REDjet officially folded in June this year when its principals announced that it had filed for bankruptcy protection, leaving many passengers across the region in the red as regards money paid to travel with the low-cost airline.
The Works Ministry here commenced the processing of refunds to affected passengers in May this year as a number of affected persons voiced concerns over payments made to travel.
Passengers were required to fill a form with the relevant ticketing information and payment being claimed, and Jodhan noted earlier that as many as four persons could make the request for repayment on a single form.
“What has happened is that you have some persons travelling as a family so it’s in those cases that you will see the actual number of passengers,” he told this newspaper.
The Works Ministry has written to Republic Bank (Guyana) Ltd to secure the bond and since repaying the affected passengers remains a priority, the agency wrote to Cabinet in order to expedite the repayment process.
As regards REDjet’s bill which it has to settle with the Guyana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) and the Cheddi Jagan International Airport (CJIA), Jodhan stated that a meeting will be held in Barbados with related agencies where the issue will be discussed. He explained that the airport authorities and passengers in other territories where REDjet operated are also awaiting refunds and payment for landing and other related fees. The GCAA and the CJIA combined are owed approximately $32 million for landing and air navigation fees and it is unclear how this sum will be recouped.
REDjet entered the local travel market two years ago with ambitious plans to cut the cost of travel within the region. However, in March this year the airline suspended its flights, citing what it termed cut-throat competition among regional carriers and it also charged that there were unfair subsidies of other airlines.
On Friday, June 8, the airline formally signalled its closure and indicated that it had applied for bankruptcy protection. Attempts to get financing from the Barbados and Guyana governments had failed.
REDjet had been well-patronised in Guyana by customers who had been hooked by the low rates – some beginning at US$3.99 plus taxes, and a number of direct routes from here had been introduced.
There had been concerns, however, that a low-budget carrier would have a hard time surviving in the region because of its island-hopping geography.
Guyana, Jamaica, Antigua, Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago were serviced by REDjet.
