THE Cheddi Jagan International Airport (CJIA) collected in excess of a billion dollars last year in revenue, for the third year in a row. Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Ramesh Ghir said that this consistently good financial performance has been achieved because of classic market stimulation caused by the commencement of additional flights to and from CJIA during the course of the year.

During a media briefing on the performance of the CJIA for 2014, at the Ministry of Public Works last Friday, Ghir disclosed that income collected by CJIA during 2014 amounted to $1,017B against expenses amounting to $678M.
Owing to this surplus of income over expenditure, the CJIA managed to transfer the sum of $394M to the Consolidated Fund.

MORE LANDINGS
Contributing to the good financial performance was the fact that jet aircraft landings at CJIA increased from 2,523 in 2013 to 2,933 in 2014, mainly due to the introduction of additional flights from COPA, CONVIASA, FLY Jamaica, INSEL AIR and DYNAMIC Airways with total passengers flown totaling 478,092.
Imported cargo through CJIA for 2014 amounted to 3,296,000kg, representing a 44% increase over the previous year.
Exports amounted to 2,852,000kg or a 16% increase on that of the corresponding period in 2013.
Ghir reported that generally overall income received by the CJIA has almost doubled in the past six years and has increased five-fold from what it was in 2001.
Income collected over the past six years, he disclosed, comprised $599M in 2009, $633M in 2010, $748M in 2011, $1.2B in 2012, $1.07B in 2013 and $1.017B in 2014.
MARKET STIMULATION
He attributed the growth and consistency in income to what he called the impacts of market stimulation.
He noted for example that traffic to Venezuela increased dramatically upon Conviasa’s introduction of service from Guyana to Venezuela in February.
“The traffic moved from an average 200 per month in 2013 to as much as 1600 a month as at November 2014.”
Citing another example, he said that despite the fact that just 14% of the COPA Airlines traffic is local, the market was stimulated significantly upon introduction of their GEO service in July 14. For the period July-November, the market grew 73% over the same period in 2013.
ATTRACTING NEW AIRLINES
He asserted: “In the aviation industry when we talk about attracting new airlines, if you build the infrastructure, if you build the facility and once you provide the incentives you will get the passengers and that has been the case last year.”
He added that infrastructure work in the country is important to attracting airlines and making the destination attractive.
“The Mariott Hotel for example is a big plus for us. Airlines look for brand names because they are looking for business packages. If you have big hotels you will have activities such as business conventions, etc. – that can attract passengers and that is high premium, high yield for the airlines.”
He also said that the main constraint the CJIA is facing with respect to getting a new operator out of Europe is that it does not have the runway length.
He said: “We cannot accommodate the Boeing 777 aircraft nor the 787 or the airbus 350. For these flights we need these sorts of facilities for efficiency.”
Ghir projected that 2015 could be an even better year for the CJIA, since the airport is currently engaged in negotiations with eight additional airlines with respect to placing Guyana on their route and will benefit immensely income-wise if these negotiations bear fruit.