The management of Dyna-mic Airways was yesterday forced to divert one of its aircraft scheduled to travel to Venezuela to rescue over 600 passengers who were left stranded over the weekend at the Cheddi Jagan International and John F Kennedy airports.
Local representative of Dynamic Airways, Gerry Gouveia, noted during a press conference yesterday that flights scheduled for Saturday and Sunday were cancelled after mechanical problems arose with one of the planes. Unfortunately, he explained, the backup aircraft that had been stationed at JFK in case of an emergency had been in an accident involving a truck and was also out of service.
“In fact, in preparation for the Christmas season, we have positioned two 767s at Kennedy. One to be on standby in case something like this happened and we started the operation knowing fully well our flights were gonna be packed and we’re going to be running a very tight schedule out of JFK to Guyana. Unfortunately, after landing one afternoon, the handling truck drove into the engine casing of the aircraft… and so that put that aircraft out of service. We activated the backup aircraft, the backup aircraft did three flights into Guyana.”
He explained that it was on Friday night that the plane experienced problems with the flaps and though they expected it to be “a quick fix,” it was actually the “rigging of controls” that took longer than anticipated.
“We are extremely sensitive about the effect that this is having on our passengers, particularly because during this Christmas season, all our flights are ram jam packed… Guyanese are coming home en masse to enjoy a Guyanese Christ-mas and we feel very, very bad, very sorry that this is happening at this time, but this was beyond our control,” Gouveia stated.
Gouveia said that Dynamic Airways and Roraima Airways could not fly the aircraft until it was cleared by the maintenance team, as the safety of their passengers was paramount.
The first recovery flight, which Gouveia related had been diverted from its regular Venezuela-Ecuador route, left JFK yesterday afternoon and was expected to arrive in Guyana at 8.40 pm.
It was expected that the aircraft experiencing mechanical issues would be made serviceable by last evening and that flights would be back on schedule by the end of the business day today.
Gouveia related that Guyanese who found themselves stranded at the Cheddie Jagan Inter-national Airport had been given transportation vouchers to travel back home.
It was also conveyed (and confirmed by a relative who wished not to be named) that it was erroneously reported by the New York Post newspaper yesterday that bride-to-be, 27-year-old Leezel Cambridge, had missed her wedding as a result of the flight’s cancellation and her husband had been forced to break the news to their 300 guests, who had already arrived at the venue.
The family member said the entire story was “false” and that the wedding is on.
