By Tiffny Rhodius
All seats on outgoing flights to Trinidad and Tobago are booked solid until the middle of next month and in-transit passengers are being forced to seek alternative flights to Suriname and pay higher fares.
This is according to four travel agencies that this newspaper spoke to yesterday and Delta Airlines.
When this newspaper contacted the local Delta Airlines office, an agent said all of its outgoing flights have been sold out until September. The agent added that seats are available for persons coming into Guyana but seats for flights out of Guyana were “completely sold out for the remainder of this month and early September.”
Efforts to get a comment from Caribbean Airlines were unsuccessful yesterday.
Meanwhile, travel agencies that this newspaper spoke to revealed that many of the booked flights are from Guyana to Port-of-Spain in Trinidad. As one agent from Muneshwers Travel Service explained, “All Caribbean Airlines flights wherever you want to go, you have to stop in Trinidad and that is what brings the difficulty.” Diven Sookraj of Sookraj and Son’s Travel Service in Berbice gave a similar explanation. He noted that both airlines, Delta and Caribbean, stop at Trinidad before connecting travellers with a flight to their final destination, be it in the region or to New York or Toronto.
Mid-May to mid-September, all agencies explained, is one of the peak seasons for travelling. And, as the agent from Destiny Travel Service noted, there are also students who are returning to Cuba added to the influx of tourists as well as outgoing passengers.
At Connections Travel Agency, it was found that persons who are desperate to return home have been flying to Suriname and taking connecting flights to their final destination, especially if they are going to North America.
It is expected that seats will be available by September 12. “To make more seats available is not so easy. They [airlines] need landing rights to bring in more seats,” the Muneshwers agent said. Sookraj, meanwhile, recalled that previously the government had stepped in and chartered Zoom Airlines when a similar situation had occurred. “This year was a rough year to get seats,” Sookraj said, noting the situation has been harsh since June.
High fares
With no seats available, ticket prices are high. One traveller shared with this newspaper that he paid US$920 for a one way Delta ticket to Guyana. But the agencies explained that tickets will cost more, depending on the availability of seats. “If you don’t buy early, you can’t get cheap fare,” the agent from Destiny Travel Service said. The agencies all said that economy class was solidly booked and if a seat became vacant it would either be business or first class. “If you do find a seat it will be business and it will be more expensive than economy,” the Connections Travel Agency agent said. “It’s difficult to travel out and if we do get the seats it’s very expensive. Fares are very high because of peak season and because you only have two airlines working the two North American countries [via] New York and Toronto,” Sookraj explained.
The Muneshwers agent said that the prices of tickets would vary on the seat available and persons who are desperate to get home would pay the price. Delta has been operating in Guyana Since June 2008. It flies from Guyana to the John F Kennedy Airport three times a week while Caribbean Airlines has been operating flights to New York and Toronto as well as other Caribbean nations.
Earlier this year, Caribbean Airlines increased the cost of tickets from Guyana to Trinidad. Government has since said that it would examine other avenues to address the issue, including competition on the route.
President Bharrat Jagdeo had stated that the establishment of a local airline in response to exorbitant air fares charged by the existing airlines, particularly Caribbean, was desirable. Tourism Minister Manniram Prashad noted in March that Guyana was more than capable of managing its own airline so as to keep air fares at a minimum, thereby encouraging more tourists.
However, the United States will not allow any airline to operate between Guyana and airports there, unless the local body meets certain international standards. Currently, Guyana falls in the Category 2 rating of the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and is among 22 nations which fall within the category alongside Belize, Nicaragua and Haiti.
