FOR 51 years, Air Services (ASL) Limited has been serving the local travelling public and has now raised the bar by being the first company to offer Lethem Day Tours to both domestic and international visitors.

Annette Arjoon–Martins, General Manager of ASL, explained that the company over the years has invested heavily in the tourism sector. Giving an insight into the company, the GM related that Air Services has been in operation for 51 years and presently operates a fleet of 23 fixed-wing aircraft and three helicopters.
She alluded to the many persons that had used ASL services over the years and noted that in order to meet the growing fleet in 2003, ASL has established its own flight school. “We are extremely proud that not only do the graduates work with us in our operations, but you can also find our pilots in the other entities at Ogle Airport,” she noted.
“Air services is not new to the tourism industry. In 2010 the company made a decision to start a Kaieteur Falls special, flying persons one day per week to the destination and now, in 2015, ASL has four such flights to Kaieteur,” she explained. Now, she noted, Air Services has launched its day tour to Lethem. This tour caters for both locally based Guyanese as well as visitors, and will include a flight to Lethem, a visit to BomFim in Brazil for sight-seeing and light shopping, a tour of Lethem and visits to different tourist locations. The Lethem day tour will be on the last Saturday of each month and will cost $48,000 per person.
Arjoon expressed on behalf of the company their gratitude to long-standing stalwart partner Wilderness Explorers, and more recently, Bushmaster. She noted that through these entities, “we have been able to reach persons across the length and breadth of the world through programmes such as the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation), Raw TV, the Discovery Channel and National Geographic.”
With the growing interest in Adventure Tourism, more persons are now seeking the services of the company to take them to the different regions, especially Region 7 (Cuyuni-Mazaruni). She added that a new preference is landscape tourism, whereby persons charter the helicopter to go into “nowhere” and just relax or celebrate.
The GM spoke extensively on the operations of the company, noting that at Mahdia, the company boasts a hangar that can accommodate two aircraft; it also has rooms to accommodate the pilots and operations staff. From this location the company shuttles over 300,000 pounds of cargo to airstrips and destinations in Regions 7 (Cuyuni-Mazaruni) and 8 (Potaro-Siparuni) on a monthly basis.
“We are the very first approved and remain the only local commercial helicopter operator. [The] fleet consists of two Bell Long rangers and one Robinson L 44, and we are also self-sufficient in our fuel which contributes significantly to our operational cost.” Arjoon noted that the fuel price amounts to 40% of their operational cost, and presently, “the company has four tanks that hold a volume of 20,000 gallons each and they are state- of-the- art, semi- wall tanks.”
Recently, “we took the decision to diversify our services even further, where the company invested in a state-of-the-art Thrush Commander, which will serve the rice industry.” With this investment, the company believes strongly and is convinced that the agricultural sector has a huge potential to grow further, “so we have taken the decision to invest into crop-dusting in preparation for that further expansion of the sector,” Arjoon noted.
“We are also proud of our Hinterland Internship Programme, where a lot of the hinterland graduates from the Hinterland Scholarship Programme do not get jobs very easily, because they have no experience. So the company decided to intern some of the students in ASL, so they gain working experience and of course would be better equipped to enter the working world.” She noted that 90% of the interns remain in the employ of ASL.

Photos by Adrian Narine