Stabroek News
June 8, 2001

The apparent collapse of the national airline GA2000, unless a joint venture partner can be found at this late stage which seems unlikely in the present situation, is a matter for deep regret. When government had decided to privatise the ailing state owned Guyana Airways Corporation there was a feeling of pride and admiration when a consortium of Guyanese businessmen stepped forward to accept the challenge. Here was what many considered an ideal solution, local entrepreneurs, several of them already with airline experience of one kind or another, coming to the rescue and setting out on a voyage of their own.

Regrettably, it has not succeeded. A number of mistakes were made ranging from the selection of management personnel to the choice of aircraft. The losses mounted and despite corrections and improvements the enterprise never really took off or looked like succeeding. Many have concluded that running an airline with one place is inherently not viable. Too much can go wrong and there are bound to be major problems with customers when the plane is down for one reason or another, It has been a bitter learning experience for the businessmen involved, apart from losing their substantial investment.

The government, which retained forty-nine percent of the shares, has not been willing to get involved in a rescue operation, apart from helping to get some stranded passengers back to their destinations. One can understand that this is not a good time for the government, having to cope with political instability, the preparation of a very late national budget and problems in both the sugar and bauxite industry. Finding money to bail out the airline might not have seemed like a priority and might even have raised problems with the International Monetary Fund and the donor community. Yet it is common knowledge that BWIA was subsidised by the Trinidadian government for several decades and that the privatised Air Jamaica has received tremendous financial support from the Patterson government.

The question therefore ultimately, apart from the private tragedy of GA 2000, is whether there is any value in having a national airline. Clearly there is in the case of Jamaica where the national airline plays a vital supporting role in the tourist industry. If tourism is to be developed here, for example, a revitalised transportation infrastructure is essential. Generally, too, businessmen local and foreign need a reliable air service and a well run national airline can help in various ways to provide this.

There has been talk of an open skies policy and making Guyana a hub for travel to and from this sub-continent. That will take an enormous amount of detailed planning and negotiation which has not even been conceptualised at this stage. Indeed seeing the huge, modern almost futuristic new airport in Trinidad which looks like something out of Saudi Arabia one wonders how we would ever be able to compete.

As usual, there are no easy solutions. The small airline business must be one of the toughest in the world, as the casualty rate in the region even in the last two decades has shown. For the time being, it seems the hope of a national airline will have to be abandoned. What about that old dream of helping to build BWIA as the regional airline, capable of supplying reliable services to all the member states of CARICOM? It still seems to make a lot of sense, rather than trying to prop up a number of small national airlines.