President Bharrat Jagdeo yesterday restated the government's intention not to rescue the cash-strapped Guyana Airways 2000 saying it would not be fair to bail out what is essentially a private company. The government has a minority interest in the airline.
Stabroek News
July 14, 2001
He told reporters yesterday at an Office of the President press conference that while "l am always concerned about workers who lose their jobs, government being a minority shareholder in GA 2000 does not mean that it was responsible [for saving their jobs].
"I am not going to use taxpayers' money to bail out the airline as the money could be spent on providing housing and water..."
As a result of the airline being unable to forge a strategic alliance, some 130 workers are likely to lose their jobs. Last month, the government guaranteed the cost of returning passengers to North America on BWIA who were stranded here when GA 2000 suspended its operations.
Jagdeo said he knew that there were a number of airline groups that wanted to fly from Guyana and as soon as "the airline is liquidated we may be in a position to allow some other carriers to take up the route and I suspect that quite a few of those employees will be working again."
GA 2000 suspended its operations towards the end of May when it failed to attract a strategic partner that would have allowed it to renew its lease of the aircraft which operated its North American service.
Since last month it has been trying to forge a strategic operational alliance with a US or Caribbean-based airline, which would have allowed it to resume its flight operations.
While these discussions were taking place, GA 2000 sent most of its employees on leave but kept its airport handling facilities at Timehri going.