Row brewing over maintenance of interior airstrips

Port Kaituma Airstrip

A row could be brewing in the country’s aviation sector over just whose responsibility it is to maintain the country’s many interior airstrips following a pronouncement by former Guyana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) Chairman Hugh Denbow last week that it was not central government’s responsibility.

Denbow’s statement provoked a sharp response from the Aircraft Owners Association of Guyana (AOAG) which described his comment as “quite extraordinary” and “completely unacceptable.” The AOAG response declared that Denbow’s assertion had departed from his “previous public professional position when he chaired, in 2013, the National Economic Forum Sub-committee, which recommended to government a National Aviation Policy and Action Plan for Guyana.”

The statement came almost two weeks after the September 17 commissioning of the Beechcraft 1900D owned by Trans Guyana on