Stabroek News
May 12, 2001

GA 2000 has consolidated its Saturday and Sunday flights to New York, taking that schedule now to Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, with the Thursday flight to Toronto unaffected.

Kit Nascimento, communications consultant to the airline, said yesterday that the airline had negotiated a new and more favourable lease with Ansett Australia, but this was contingent upon the discussion GA 2000 was having with a potential investor.

Nascimento confirmed that this meant that if the investor did not buy into the airline, as was being currently negotiated, the lease arrangement would be off.

GA 2000 began negotiating for a sale of shares in the carrier a few months ago as the airline began to experience cash flow difficulties. The airline was initially talking to two potential investors but the talks have now narrowed to one investor with a background in airlines. "I believe they [the negotiations] will be concluded by next week," Nascimento said yesterday.

GA 2000 is owned 51% by Aviation Investments, a consortium of local Guyanese businesses, which got together in 1999 to take over the privatised airline. The government retains the remainder of the shares in the airline and is willing to sell a portion of it to give the new investor control.