GA 2000 liabilities reduced - Persaud New CEO eyes expansion By Desiree Jodah Stabroek News July 1, 2000 The priority of Tom Scarlett, the new chief executive officer (CEO) of Guyana Airways 2000 is to deliver a profitable airline to the shareholders with a capacity for expansion and growth. Scarlett officially takes over the reins of the company from today. According to Chairman of the GA 2000 Board of Directors, Yesu Persaud, the company had gone "headhunting" for the new CEO, who up to a few weeks ago had been BWIA's North America general manager. Persaud said that none of the applicants for the position met the requirements of the company. As a result, he said, GA 2000 officials successfully wooed Scarlett to head the company. Scarlett, according to Persaud, has a long distinguished career of management in the airline business. The new CEO had also served in a senior management position with Air Jamaica and Eastern Airlines. Persaud said the airline, which would be a year old on July 9, had made it through rough periods. He said the company started operations seriously under-capitalised and carrying burdensome debts. However, he said that those liabilities had been reduced and the company was currently preparing an offer-document for increasing the airline's share capital in order to support its planned expansion. Earlier this year at an Editors press briefing, Persaud had acknowledged that the airline had encountered financial turbulence and that restructuring and cost cutting would be pursued. GA 2000 is currently operating six flights to New York per week and two to Toronto. Persaud said that with Scarlett in charge, the company planned to launch an aggressive marketing strategy. The company would also be changing its wet-lease arrangement to a dry-lease one. This was expected to get underway by October, by which time it was envisaged, local pilots would have gone through their training and completed their exams. Local pilots used to fly the Boeing 757 for the old Guyana Airways Corporation. GA 2000 management has already initiated the recruitment of qualified Guyanese pilots and was negotiating for their refresher training on the Boeing 757. Scarlett, speaking to the media at a press conference at the GA 2000 office, Main Street, said that while he was happy to serve at various senior management levels with BWIA, he could not resist the challenge of helping the Guyanese company to realise the real possibility of the airline becoming a major player as a West Indian airline. Customer service and satisfaction would remain high on the GA 2000 agenda. Scarlett said he was happy that since the airline had leased the Boeing 757, it had been performing well and had maintained an on-time flight schedule of 90%. He said the best airlines strove to maintain theirs at 80%. It was agreed that the future of the airline lay in expanding its horizons to include service into the Caribbean and Latin America. In actively pursuing strategic alliances and functional cooperation with other airlines, Scarlett said, he planned to meet shortly with his colleagues at BWIA and Air Jamaica. He said this would add to the approaches made by the directors to a number of major carriers. According to the new CEO, the company was at an advanced stage of negotiations to ensure a back up aircraft is available within 24 hours of GA 2000 being out of service for any reason. He said as the company expanded its business, it would enlarge its fleet. Follow the goings-on in Guyana in Guyana Today