A week ago the Head of Trans Guyana Airways Mr Michael Correia introduced a Rayethon Beechcraft 1900D aircraft into the country’s aviation sector. The addition to the local aviation inventory amounts to much more than just another aircraft. First, it translates into a US$4 million private sector investment in the country, a considerable if seemingly calculated risk by any stretch of the imagination. Second, an aircraft such as this adds a considerable measure of prestige to the country’s aviation sector whilst significantly upgrading the quality of air transport facilities available to the country.
It is, of course, no secret that there are several things that are not right about the local aviation industry. On Thursday of last week Mr Correia delivered a presentation at the commissioning of the aircraft that was, in part, strategically crafted to make a point about the state of the local aviation sector. He declared, among other things, that “the condition of our hinterland airstrips is worse now, than when GAC operated its HS748 50-seater aircraft in the interior, in the 1970s.” He went further, pointing out that the sector’s appeal for US$7.5 million “to be invested over a 3-year period, at least, to put us back on track with the GAC days” was “continuously ignored by our past minister,” and “instead, large sums of money have been allocated for politically, rather than development driven, priorities.” The sector, Mr Correia went on, was more than a little bemused when it contemplated “the cost benefit of spending US$150 million on one airport alone while allocating such insignificant expenditure on the other 50,” that is to say the country’s interior airstrips.
The present administration is on record as making some promises that have to do with the upgrading of the country’s aviation infrastructure from the standpoints of both its human and operating capabilities. It would seem that its commitment to changing gears as far as interior aviation development is concerned is influenced by the fact that hinterland development continues to move ever closer to the very centre of the economic aspirations of the country to say nothing of what has become the dire need for our coastal political administration to better serve the needs of our interior communities.
At the start of its tenure the new coalition administration sent clear signals that it was seeking to work closely with the private sector to build the country’s economy. Trans Guyana’s new Beechcraft is not only a major and noteworthy investment from which we hope and expect the investors will profit, it is also an invest in the image and development of the country as a whole and for all those reasons Mr Correia’s call last week for more attention to be paid to the development of the hinterland and its airstrips is entirely deserving of the government’s studied and serious attention.
As of October 1 Trans Guyana plans to make its recent acquisition available for both day and night international charters. It is only right that we move with as much haste as we can muster to accord the aircraft the quality of airstrip that it deserves.