…as it works towards Category One status

AS the Guyana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) works to strengthen its capacity, a recent audit of the country’s umbrella aviation body is seen as an encouraging sign, given the fact that it is working towards achieving Category One aviation status.

The GCAA’s operations were audited recently by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) to ensure compliance with the international body’s standards and recommended practices. At a press briefing, GCAA’s Director-General, Lieutenant Colonel (Retired) Egbert Fields, noted that the aviation body is working overtime towards developing its status.
“We just completed an audit to determine where Guyana is in terms of compliance,” he said of the audit. He told the press that the results of the audit saw Guyana achieving 64.44 per cent, a marked improvement from the 44.44 per cent which it had scored previously. He said the recent score is above average for the Caribbean.

According to Fields, the oversight systems within the GCAA are being examined as key towards advancement of the body’s status. “We are moving forward by trying to establish a robust oversight system, a robust authority,” he said.
On the contrary, he said that if the body does not strengthen its position, it would not be able to face the challenges which could arise in another two to three years. According to Fields, the GCAA is looking towards the prospect of employing experts to assist in further strengthening of its capacity, adding that the government has placed its full support behind development of the sector.

Subsequent to the audit, Fields said the ICAO auditor expressed satisfaction with the body’s performance. He said the assessor observed that Guyana is moving “in the right direction”, and the official pointed to training as well as the acquisition of additional skills as pivotal to enhancing the semi-autonomous body.
On the ground, work is afoot to develop the training capacity of Air Traffic Controllers. Director of Air Navigation Services, Rickford Samaroo, told the media at the briefing that the semi-autonomous body was given the green-light by the government to purchase a state-of-the-art simulator. He said that the equipment will be used to train new controllers as well as recurring training for practising controllers.

Meanwhile, Manager of the GCAA training school, Courtney Frank, noted that the selection of eight newly trained controllers came from an initial batch of 14 persons. He said the batch of eight has successfully progressed through the system as a batch.
“So we selected this batch, because we felt that they were ready,” he added. The new controllers will be added to the roster of the GCAA’s ATC operations at Timehri and at Ogle. Jamaica’s aviation sector was chosen for the training, since it was seen as the most competitively priced institution at the time of selection. Frank said another 35 persons are currently undergoing training to enter the profession.