Following its closure to international commercial flights as part of COVID-19 measures, the Cheddi Jagan International Airport (CJIA) is beginning to feeling the impact financially.
To date, none of the employees of the CJIA have had their salary or wages cut as monies due from airlines and other operators were paid up to the time the stoppage began but CJIA Public Relations Officer Shunza Samuels says that by the end of May, the impact will “really kick in”.
“We are largely dependent on passenger movement of these airlines to deal with our operations. So when these agencies are not operating, it puts a strain on our operations,” Samuels said when contacted.
“For February and March, we were still receiving outstanding payments so that helped but the real impact will be from about now,” she added.
On March 17, the authorities here announced that the two major airports would be closed to incoming international flights from midnight of March 18 for a two-week period. That period was subsequently extended until May. The closure has since been further extended until June 3.
Head of the Guyana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) Colonel (Ret’d) Egbert Field had explained that exceptions were made for cargo and medevac flights, technical stops for aircraft which would require fuel to proceed onwards to another destination, and special authorised flights.
Samuels said that while there has been an increase in cargo flights, it can in no way offset the revenue generated when the airport was fully operational.
But the slowdown has not impacted the salaries of workers as Samuels explained that the CJIA’s management instituted a rotation system to ensure there were no layoffs. She explained, “In terms of impact on operations, it is insignificantly slowed because… since nothing is happening at that level it is going to be a bit challenging. What we did initially was we told those staff that had their annual leave to proceed, to take all of their days. So now we are finding that most of those days have elapsed and what we have done is initiated a rotation system.
“Each department caters for its specific needs. So staff from a particular department might work three days at home and one day in the office and another department might need something different. So although our revenue at CJIA has been impacted salaries have not,” she said.
Ogle Airport Inc. (OAI), which manages Guyana’s other international airport, the Eugene F. Correia International Airport, has said that it has been severely impacted by the suspension of international traffic, causing layoffs, salary cuts and a staggering 45% loss of overall revenue.
Although local flights are allowed to operate, OAI’s spokesperson Kit Nascimento said the measures instituted by the government are “unrealistic” and this has driven the noticeable reduction on domestic operations.
“Because of the lockdown on international traffic, the airport has lost 45 % of its overall revenue,” he had told this newspaper in a recent interview.
“The domestic airlines have also had to substantially cut back on their domestic operations because of the limitations to border locations. Unrealistic rules by the COVID-19 Task Force, whereby domestic airlines can only take 50% load… have also reduced domestic operations,” he added.
Nascimento said that in addition to the suspended operations of the airport’s major non-local carriers, Caribbean Airlines (CAL) was about to start up operations to Trinidad and Barbados but could not do so anymore. OAI, anticipating that it would have been a boost to its revenue and traveller traffic for this country, had spent significant sums in anticipation of these operations, “which, of course, have not materialised”.
