The two-week closure of Guyana’s two main airports to international passenger traffic as part of the response to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has resulted in at least one business reducing staff as they anticipate a steep dip in income.
For Roraima Airways, the ground handler for American Airlines and Eastern Airlines and which also operates domestic and charter services out of the Eugene F Correia Inter-national Airport (EFCIA) at Ogle, East Coast Deme-rara, a three-month downsizing of staff is imminent.
Roraima’s Chief Execu-tive Gerry Gouveia ex-plained, “We haven’t finalised it as yet but we sent out a general letter telling staff that we have to do restructuring. We are not terminating our staff. People will go off on their leave now as an option and that sort of thing. In other areas, where nothing is happening at our hotels and restaurants, the staff will have to be sent home for the three-month period without pay,” he said.
“As you know, we operate domestic flights so the Ogle operations will not be affected,” he added.
Gouveia said that Roraima’s staff complement is about 300 and they not only serve American Airlines but would have also been scheduled to provide ground handling services for Eastern Airlines, which had only one flight thus far.
He said that he wanted to make it clear that the company’s partnership with American Airlines has not been interrupted in any way. “They are still our partners… we will be working to keep our operations going in their absence,” he said.
According to Gouveia, periodic assessments would be made as he intends to keep his entire staff complement since he is optimistic that the travel restrictions will be lifted soon and that a cure for COVID-19 would be found.
CJIA
Meantime, the Cheddi Jagan International Airport (CJIA) continues to monitor the impact of the slowdown in operations. “Our staff has not been affected but we are monitoring the situation. As preventative measures for the coronavirus, we have been basically rotating them,” a CJIA official told Stabroek News yesterday. The official noted that last night would have seen the last of both incoming and departing international flights for two weeks and the airport would determine its decisions on additional work schedules after this.
At the EFCIA, management of Ogle Airport Inc (OAI) said they are working out adjustments to accommodate the absence of international passenger traffic.
“We are making whatever economical adjustments. This is a private airport and it is not being carried by the government; it derives its incomes from domestic and international flights and international flights have been stopped. The management, therefore, has to make whatever adjustments it has to make to keep operating and one of those could be, and I want to stress could be, a reduction of staff, although there is no decision to do that at this time,” Public Relations Officer for OAI Kit Nascimento said.
Authorities on Tuesday announced that the two major airports would be closed to incoming international flights from midnight last night for the next two weeks.
“The Civil Aviation Authority, in order to slow the progress of this virus and in consultation with the Ministry of Health, has decided with the approval of the Cabinet Taskforce to close all airports to all international flights,” Director General of the Guyana Civil Aviation Authority Egbert Field had said.
He noted that exceptions will be made for outgoing, cargo and medevac flights, technical stops for aircraft which would require fuel to proceed onwards to another destination, and special authorised flights.
This arrangement was set to take effect from midnight last night for a period of 14 days. Field said that during this period, monitoring will continue and he noted that there will be an extension of the closure if necessary.
The confirmation of the novel coronavirus disease here have already caused a sharp decline in business, compounding the slowdown that began after the March 2 general elections. To date, five COVID-19 cases have been confirmed in Guyana.
As a result, the hospitality industry is uneasy as some operators are grappling with how they will be able to stay afloat while acting in the best interest of their staffers.
Thousands of jobs are said to be on the line, not only from the hotels, resorts, restaurants, cafes, and bars, but also from the related aviation and transportation sectors, should the situation take a turn for the worse.
President of the Tourism and Hospitality Associa-tion of Guyana (THAG) Mitra Ramkumar had told Stabroek News that the presence of COVID-19 here is a tremendous blow to the tourism sector as persons are cancelling their travel plans.
Most public servants have started working on a shift system to avoid clustering at their offices. The Department of Public Information, in a report earlier this week, said that the decision was made by President David Granger in order to protect the health and wellbeing of public servants.
