Minister of Business Dominic Gaskin believes that the “arbitrarily” implemented fees at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport (CJIA), Timehri will have a negative impact on the local tourism sector.
Speaking to Stabroek News yesterday, Gaskin said, “People book flights based on price and if you charge US$20 more, it will have an impact. Countries who know this, they don’t just raise arbitrarily, they do all kinds of assessments to decide on how it will impact the industry.”
Stabroek News reported last week that Caribbean Airlines had advised travellers that the CJIA has increased its airport security fee and introduced a passenger service charge, which are effective from April 1st. In a press release, the airline said the CJIA has advised all airlines that the fees are to support the improvements at the airport.
As a result, the cost to travellers for a return (round) trip is US$35 (GY$7,315), while for departing passengers it is US$17, and for one-way departing passengers it is US$15, payable in Guyana dollars at the prevailing foreign exchange rate.
Gaskin told Stabroek News that he has asked the Director of Tourism Brian Mullis to make inquiries on the new fees and its impact on the tourism industry.
“Guyana is already an expensive place to visit and I was a little concerned when I read it. If you want to attract people, you don’t do so by making it more expensive to travel to those countries,” he said.
The minister explained that he learnt of the new fees in the media. He related that when he enquired from his colleagues if they were aware of the new fees, they too indicated that they had no knowledge of it.
“I heard about it last Tuesday while we were at Cabinet…I was just as surprised as most Guyanese…I raised it with a few colleagues who were just as surprised…I would have liked to raise it yesterday (Tuesday). I was supposed to come back to attend Cabinet but they had a sick passenger on (the) flight and it had to be diverted so I was not able,” the Business Minister explained.
Nonetheless, he pointed out that when he travelled out of the country, he was not asked to pay any fee.
Efforts by Stabroek News to contact Chief Executive Officer of the CJIA Ramesh Ghir for clarity on the fees proved futile, as calls to his phone went unanswered.
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) on Tuesday expressed concern over the implementation of the new fees and called for immediate dialogue with the management of the airport and the Ministry of Public Infrastructure.
In a statement, IATA quoted Peter Cerda, it’s Regional Vice President for the Americas as saying, “It is completely unacceptable that passengers are being inconvenienced in such a manner. This is a direct result of the airport’s management refusal to engage with IATA on a process which is standard practice across the globe. As a consequence, our member airlines have unfortunately no choice other than to manually collect the additional fees and charges.”
The organisation had pointed out that it has worldwide standards in place enabling airlines to collect government-imposed fees, service charges and taxes as part of an airline ticket. These are then transferred to the respective governments. It noted that this has provided a smoother travel experience for passengers by eliminating the former practice whereby many governments manually collected some of these fees and taxes at airports.
IATA asked for clarity from the airport operator on how the fees and charges have been calculated, while charging that international standards set out by the Inter-national Civil Aviation Organisation’s Document 9082 were not followed.
Cerda, in the statement, said that while the IATA understands that airports need to recover their investment costs, it must be achieved through a collaborative and transparent process, ensuring that imposed fees are proportionate to the planned expenditure.
“…As such we urgently call on the management of Cheddi Jagan Inter-national Airport to engage into the requested dialogue, so passengers are no longer inconvenienced, and member airlines can return to their normal business,” he was quoted as saying.
