Friendly skies over Guyana
Ravi Dev Column
Kaieteur News
January 28, 2007
One of the cornerstones of a free enterprise system is the principle that competition between providers of goods or services is essential for the overall health and survival of the economy. Not to mention the pockets of the consumer. Monopolies (when there is only one provider) or oligopolies (when there are only a few providers), on the other hand are bad. This truism came home forcefully to me as it recently became necessary for me to take a quick trip up to New York .
Not that I'm any jetsetter, but I've been flying for some time: I first went to New York as a student in 1972 on BOAC, the precursor to British Airways. In the late seventies and early eighties, I was a regular passenger on BWIA and Guyana Airways as BOAC and Pan Am decamped our socialist experiment.
Then came the heady heyday of the charter airlines – GuyAmerica, Tropical, Suncoast, Star etc. etc. – that certainly made Guyana look like a hot destination. At least on the ground, as several carriers sometimes converged on our tarmac and waited for the lone tractor to haul the disgorged luggage to our lone terminal. And there certainly was a lot of luggage as visitors tried to relieve the monotony of the local diet in those days of banning and scarcity.
I can't really judge the service of the early foreign airlines. In that one, early 1972 foray, I was too taken up with the wonder of coasting at thirty-three thousand feet in the air in a metal container (never mind what my high school physics told me) to take notice. I do remember that the one-way ticket cost some $400 Guyana , which was my one-month teacher's salary.
What I do remember of the period when BWIA and Guyana Airways had the field to themselves were perennial late departures and arrivals and non-arriving luggage. My pet peeve was the fact that neither airline ever took the time to communicate to us that there were going to be delays or how long the delay may last.
One would be sitting in the various terminals seething with frustration until it became too much for someone or the other and then would come the volcanic explosion of expletives. Not that it changed anything or elicited any information. Seething was the order of the day.
The problem stemmed from the fact that both BWIA and Guyana Airways operated like governments. They had a bloated structure with staff that was generally more focused on warming their seats than customer service. We had an oligopoly, with the two carriers complacently accepting their share of passengers and maintaining a fairly high fare structure and abysmal service.
I remember several treks to the BWIA office filled with other supplicants seeking information on errant luggage.
The charter operators brought competition into the North America-Guyana run and much needed relief to Guyanese pocketbooks as the prices of tickets plummeted. The service, however, was never much above the two other established carriers. This was not due to bloated, bureaucratic apathetic staff: they were too busy putting out fires stemming mainly from the Achilles heel of all charter airlines – access to aircraft when the one they would have leased encountered the inevitable “mechanical” problems.
Stranded passengers piled on top of each other as the domino effect fell into place once one flight was cancelled. And the charter airlines all eventually crashed. (Suncoast still owes me money – if they ever reincarnate.)
Guyana Airways also suffered from the access-to-aircraft problem, since they only owned one - so they were doubly jinxed. The privatised version, Guyana 2000, never overcame the inherited bureaucratic inertia and they went under leaving a whole lot of people holding the bag. (They owe my mother-in-law a return flight.)
The successor flag-carrier, Universal Airlines, corrected the staffing problems but was burnt by the single-carrier jinx and went under. (They very politely reimbursed me in New York but I still got stuck when I had to pay first class on North American for myself and my family to return home.)
And that brings me to North American. As BWIA continued to self-destruct in the confluence of bureaucratic sloth and poor relations with Guyanese customers, North American provided much-needed relief to the travelling public. Owning several aircraft, they have proven reliable and introduced a new feature to Guyana – service to customers! At long last basic information was available to travellers. Flights were on time. The food was good.
However, with the demise of Universal and the endemic problems of BWIA created an almost monopolistic situation and we saw and enormous jump in airfares to New York . I had to fork over almost US$1,000 last September.
Which brings me to my quick trip to New York , last week. My wife booked me on the most recent carrier, Travel Span, which had announced a fare of US$350 – certainly nearer to a teachers' salary now-a-days! Their lowball price was quickly matched (almost) by North American and we saw the beginning of real competition between two modern privately owned companies.
I was resigned to bargain-basement treatment to match the bargain-basement price but I was in for a surprise! Information was readily available, the food was good but what was most remarkable was the service.
A couple of decades ago, the car-rental Avis company, adopted a novel approach in taking on the industry giant Hertz. They lived up to their slogan- “We're number 2, we try harder”, and saw their business boom.
Well, Travel Span certainly looks as if they're going to give North American a run for their money. Their most interesting innovation is the presence of their sales manager as an in-flight coordinator. Not owning their aircraft, this ploy has overcome the problem of most foreign staff not used to our local needs.(Excess luggage?)
The coordinator was ubiquitous in updating passengers on what was going on and in demonstrating to the crew the level of service expected, all while acting as a cheerleader for them.
I had encountered Travel Span when going into Trinidad where they had taken over an old, established travel service and become a large tour operator for the entire Caribbean . Their extensive New York operations showed that they're no fly-by-nighters and (as I worried while I was up there) should ensure that I got back into Guyana .
I broached the subject of the lone-aircraft travail to the in-flight coordinator on the return flight and was assured that their lease has a clause that guarantees them a six-hour replacement of craft in the event of “mechanical” problems. Their tour operator's presence probably gives them some added clout, since they are a player in the market.
I know that the low fare was probably intended to expose Travel Span to the new market but I can assure them that if they maintain the level of service shown on my last trip, they're not going to remain Number Two for long. The skies over Guyana have become a lot friendlier.