THOUGH their services to the aviation sector are often overlooked, the Guyana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) will soon be expected to regulate the local airport ground-handling agencies.

This is according to Acting Director-General Artie Heeralall, who was at the time addressing the opening of the Caribbean Air Handlers Association’s (CAHA) three-day annual general meeting which will conclude on Sunday at the Duke Lodge in Kingston.

“We are in a transformational stage,” Heeralall said of the sector, in obvious reference to the major developments it has seen in the past decade, such as the expansion of fleets. “All of these things tell us that Guyana is serious about aviation,” she said.
And seeing that the sector drives economic development, Heeralall said that with the increase in activities, ground-handling and support services will become even more demanding, in that it will become “a core service” to the aviation sector.

Heeralall said that while an oversight mechanism of ground-handling services was never put in place in the past, since the contribution of the ground-handling services will become more important to the sector, the GCAA has plans to regulate the services here.
She said it is expected that the companies offering such services will embrace such a move, and the GCAA is always working to ensure a safer and more efficient aviation sector.
Minister of Public Infrastructure, David Patterson, told the gathering that the sector has been evolving globally, given its potential to develop any country, so he is pleased that the CAHA is working to represent a unit within the industry which may have been overlooked.
The minister said that in Guyana, information suggests that Roraima Airways’ ground-handling service is the only local agency that is a member of CAHA, and he posited that the body should promote its position to other local entities so that they, too, can benefit from its services.

“This becomes even more important for Guyana, as we are on the precipice of the transformation of our economy,” Minister Patterson said, as he noted that the AGM here comes at a timely period within the country’s development.

CAHA has been in existence since 2007, and in addition to ground-handling entities around the region, its membership includes airline and aviation-related agencies.