Chief Executive Officer of Roraima Airways and veteran aircraft pilot Captain Gerry Gouveia has taken issue with remarks regarding the state of the local aviation sector attributed to Public Infrastructure Minister David Patterson and published in the Stabroek News of June 28, 2015.
Speaking with Stabroek Business last week Gouveia said he was taken aback by the minister’s “choice of language” to describe the likely consequences of a lack of compliance with standards in the sector. “While there are obviously those of us who will understand the significance of the minister’s remark that ‘certain players will fall out of the sky,’ I believe that it is possible that comments of that nature might just send the wrong signals to the travelling public,” Gouveia said.
Meanwhile, on the subject of the minister’s allusion to a clampdown on local airlines that were “not operating up to standard,” the Roraima boss said that where this is discovered to be the case there should be no prevarication over the issue of sanctions.
In response to the minister’s remark regarding the Guyana aviation sector being “deficient in so many areas,” Gouveia not only proffered a stout defence of the competence of the sector, but appeared to raise questions about the veracity of the technical advice that formed the basis of the minister’s comments.
“The minister’s comments disappointed me. The Guyana aviation system today is a very modern system. It is certainly not part of the dark ages. In Guyana today there is standardization, in our regulations. Of course, it is still an ongoing and evolving process. However, we are miles away from where we were 15 or 20 years ago,” the local aviator told Stabroek Business.
According to Gouveia, at a time when interior air travel had assumed a greater significance in the context of the various major investments – particularly in the mining sector – which the country was attracting, it was important to “send positive signals to audiences outside the country about the robustness of the country’s domestic aviation sector. Of course building on what we have is a work in progress but we need to send reassuring messages about a sector that has proven itself to be safe, efficient and professionally competent.”
In remarks that appeared to have been directed at the Guyana Civil Aviation Organization (GCAO) Gouveia said he believed that if there were technical advisors advising the minister, it speaks volumes for their lack of technical competence. “I believe that we should be mindful of sending messages to the flying public, including potential tourists and investors suggesting that our aviation sector is unsafe and unstable, which is far from true. The Guyana aviation sector is extremely safe and extremely professional. While there are challenges from time to time the system is manned and operated by some of the world’s best-trained pilots, engineers and air traffic controllers right here in Guyana,” he said.
And while the Stabroek News article alluded to Guyana having secured then lost Category One aviation status and was now seeking to regain it, Gouveia told Stabroek Business that as far as he was aware Guyana had never had Category One status. “What we had was a special approval to allow GAC to operate in the USA. For me, however, the real issue is whether securing Category One status is a high priority for the Guyana aviation sector at this time as against the other more pressing local priorities like fixing local runways, enhancing our weather reporting systems, significantly upgrading our search and rescue capacity and setting up an independent aircraft accident investigation unit.”
The Category One rating is accorded to countries by the United States of America Federal Aviation Administration (USA FAA) to allow those countries’ airlines to fly in and out of the USA based on them satisfying particular aviation standards and security systems set by the FAA.
“The minister’s pronouncement regarding Guyana’s quest for a Category One rating is not related to our domestic operations. As far as those operations are concerned, Guyana is compliant with all International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) standards. The ICAO is the oversight authority for global aviation,” Gouveia declared.
