‘SN stories involving ASL lack impartiality’

Dear Editor,

Air Services Limited has serious doubts about your impartial handling of news relating to issues between ourselves and the Ogle Airport Inc, whose PR Consultant seems to have a special relationship with you and your staff.

This dates back to your Sunday December 12, 2010 front page headline ‘Cesna Landing in August at 63 Beach raises serious questions,’ when you were always quoting “aviation sources” that suggested all kinds of terrible things. You even linked the incident in some inexplicable way to fuel-smuggling at Eteringbang. The Guyana Civil Aviation Authority had to debunk these suggestions when they verified that the flight had official clearance.

However, when in March 2011 a security guard was killed at a Correia subsidiary company CAMS, and a significant quantity of guns and ammunition was found on the premises at Ogle Airport, you made little of this major story, which died away quickly and quietly. No big headline about boosting security.

The incident with the refusal of entry of a fuel tanker containing fuel licensed and screened, however, grabs the front page headline on Saturday August 13 and is followed up with the news-shattering headline that the ramming of the gate has prompted ‘Security boosted at Ogle airport.’ Since you realized that this in itself is not a serious headline story, you promptly repeated the original story on two inside pages.

ASL is hosting a press conference today Monday, August 15, at 3pm at the Ogle Aerodrome. We hope that adequate coverage, commensurate with your two headline stories, will be given by your newspaper.

Yours faithfully,
Capt Mazahar Ally