Guyana signs air services agreements with 16 states

The Guyana and UK delegations at the meeting.  Lt. Col. (Ret’d) Egbert Field is third from right and Saheed Sulaman is at left. (GCAA photo)
The Guyana and UK delegations at the meeting. Lt. Col. (Ret’d) Egbert Field is third from right and Saheed Sulaman is at left. (GCAA photo)

The Guyana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) in December last year signed air services agreements with 16 states at a meeting in Kenya.

GCAA officials attended the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) Air Services Negotiation (ICAN) event, hosted by the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority in Nairobi from December 10 -14, 2018 and conducted 26 meetings.

A GCAA release said that these meetings resulted in the conclusion of sixteen Air Services Agreements (ASA’s) with Luxembourg, Democratic Republic of Congo, Burkina Faso, the United Kingdom, Mozambique, Sri Lanka, Cameroon, Oman, Malaysia, Jordan, Zimbabwe, Colombia, Morocco, Gambia, Rwanda and Tanzania.

Agreements were initialed and Memoranda of Understanding were signed with these countries. Pending signature of these agreements at the Ministerial level, the agreements are provisionally applied, which means airlines from other countries can begin flights to Guyana at any time provided that the airlines are operating by the conditions outlined in the ASA’s.

The Guyanese delegation comprised the Director General of the GCAA, Lt. Col. (Ret’d) Egbert Field, and Director for Air Transport Management, Saheed Sulaman.

Additionally, Guyana also signed a Code Sharing Agreement with Australia and a Technical Cooperation Agreement with Ghana for the exchange of knowledge and technical expertise in the area of civil aviation.

Negotiations for ASA have commenced with Cote d’Ivoire, Sierra Leone, The Bahamas Senegal, and Saudi Arabia.

The negotiation of these agreements are complementary to the work begun at the ICAO Air Transport Meeting which was held in Guyana from November 21-23, 2018, the release said.