GA 2000 promises normal schedule by Wednesday
Delayed New York-bound passengers on GA 2000 were scheduled to leave Guyana last night despite a spare parts glitch and the airline yesterday promised a normal flight schedule by Wednesday. A statement from Guyana Airways 2000's (GA 2000) public relations firm, PCCL yesterday said that the airline's New York flight delayed from Friday night because of a faulty warning system was scheduled to leave at 8 pm last night. There was some doubt as to whether this deadline would be met as a BWIA flight ferrying spare parts for the GA Airbus landed yesterday afternoon at the Timehri airport without the parts. The Friday night delay was due to the malfunctioning of an engine warning system. The faulty indicator had signalled a problem with the left engine which required it to be shut down. This caused the airborne A300 Airbus to return and land with one engine at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport, Timehri after 40 minutes into the flight. A GA statement on Saturday had said that after landing, a check revealed that the problem was the malfunctioning of the indicator. Those scheduled to depart last night were passengers who were originally booked to travel Friday night. According to the airline's revised schedule, passengers who were booked to fly on GA 2000 flights GY 752 and GY 762 on Friday and Saturday would be accommodated on the rescheduled GY 752 earmarked to leave last night and GY 762 scheduled to depart at 2.30 pm today. The remaining passengers delayed from flights over the weekend are to wing out of Guyana on GY 762 at 2.30 pm this afternoon. Passengers who were to depart New York on January 15 and January 16 for Georgetown will leave New York today at 6 am and arrive in Guyana at 12.30 pm. Passengers originally intended to leave for Toronto on GY 412 at 4.30 pm today will now leave Georgetown at 5 am tomorrow morning. Repairs to be conducted on the Airbus by Nordstress engineers include the replacement of a set of landing wheels and brake components which were affected when the plane made the single engine landing on Friday night. The wheels and the brakes which were expected did not arrive on the BWIA flight on which it was due yesterday afternoon. Negotiations were still on to have the parts flown in to facilitate the 8 pm flight last night. A number of passengers who were checking in at the GA 2000 Head Office on Main Street yesterday told Stabroek News that their main concern was their jobs. However, airline officials told Stabroek News that they have given passengers letters to take to their employees because of the delay. One passenger, Bassoodeo Goberdhan, who works at Rice University told this newspaper that he was very concerned about his job in spite of the letter he received from the airline. Goberdhan was due to travel Saturday afternoon to arrive in New York in time for a connection on an American Airlines flight to Texas at 12:30 hrs yesterday. To reconnect he has to pay an additional fee for reconnection today. If he misses that flight he has to pay US$800 for a charter flight to get to work today. Two cousins Germaine King and Delroy Bentick are both concerned about their jobs as well. The two cousins both came to Guyana to attend their grandfather's funeral. They were among the number of passengers who said they travelled on GA 2000 for patriotic reasons. However, they like other passengers expressed concern about the delays saying that if alternative flight arrangements cannot be made in time for them to get back to their jobs they would have to consider travelling with a more reliable airline. A number of passengers also complained about customer service both at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport, Timehri and at the John F. Kennedy Airport in New York. Meanwhile, in a separate press release issued by PCCL, GA 2000 assailed the Sunday Chronicle newspaper for what it termed "erroneous and irresponsible" reporting. It said that despite a GA 2000 press release which said that the aborted New York flight was due to a malfunctioning engine safety warning system, the Sunday Chronicle report had said that the aircraft had developed "engine trouble". It also denied among other contentions in the Sunday Chronicle report that passengers were left to wait for more than three hours before being attended to or informed of the status of the flight. It was the second time in less than a week that GA 2000 had accused the Chronicle newspaper of misreporting. On the previous occasion it had castigated the newspaper for saying that GA 2000 had suffered an $800M loss last year. GA said that while it was experiencing difficulties and would register a loss on operations last year it was not even 5% of the figure alleged in the Chronicle report.
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