We need a national airline

Dear Editor,

We certainly have interesting tales of air travel and the airline industry in Guyana and in these parts of the world. I paid close to US$1000 for an airfare to Montego Bay in Jamaica a few weeks ago from Georgetown. My mother, who resides in New York, paid less than half the price and reached Sangster International Airport several hours before I did.

In the meantime, I was stopping over at three destinations, namely Trinidad, Barbados, and St Maarten, with Caribbean Airlines – our only choice here on these shores. I landed at Manley Airport some six hours after leaving Georgetown, and then took an Air Jamaica 20-minute flight to Montego Bay. My mother’s flight time was just over four hours and it was a direct flight to the tourism capital of Jamaica.

The in-flight services were so poor. Juice and biscuits during one leg of the journey and something that they called lunch on the final leg to Manley airport. Coming back was no different. There were stops at Antigua, Barbados, and Trinidad. While I didn’t mind the chance to see those other islands from inside the plane, I wanted to get to my destination. The tiresome and hassling experience is not one I would recommend to anyone travelling to Jamaica or one of those faraway islands.

Wasn’t there an alternative that could have taken me faster – perhaps directly to Manley airport or even Sangster in Montego Bay, maybe, from Trinidad or Barbados? This is ridiculous!

The hassle meted out to Guyanese during airline travel and airline choices is overbearing. There is no better time to bring a national airline once more to Guyana, and make it really work this time. Travel agencies, too, need to engage travellers and customers with more options and solutions so that we get to our destinations in the shortest possible time and spend wisely too. I should not have paid so much to go to Montego Bay when the price for that ticket could have easily taken me half way around the world and back.

Yours faithfully,
(Name and address provided)