WITH the expected traffic increase in September due to Guyana hosting its inaugural Cricket Carnival, the Cheddi Jagan International Airport (CJIA) has already put measures in place to handle the increased traffic.
This is according to Director General of the Guyana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA), Egbert Field, who said his agency is looking forward to the increase.

“I know that the management at the airport has been preparing for the increase and from the CAA’s part, the airport is ready and capable of handling the increase in traffic,” Field said.
For the first half of the year 2022, a total of 145,654 passengers were seen entering the country through CJIA. These numbers were predicted to increase in the second half of the year.

The 11th Hero Caribbean Premier League (CPL), which is scheduled to be here for two weeks in September, promises to be an attractive affair, considering the level of preparation, increased private sector engagement, and meaningful inclusion of stakeholders in Guyana and across the Caribbean.

This year, Cricket Carnival will be a fusion of sports and culture.
With Guyana boasting a unique ‘eco-tourism’ package, the country’s resorts and main tourist sites, like Kaieteur Falls, will also see increased traffic.

Guyana’s hosting of the regional event comes at a time when the country will also be celebrating Amerindian Heritage Month.
The Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports, and the Ministry of Tourism, along with the Ministry of Home Affairs are already in action, as they are in preparation for this ‘Mega’ event.

With the capacity of Guyana’s aviation sector being significantly enhanced through the expansion of the boarding corridor at the CJIA, the updated facility will feature two boarding bridges which can facilitate D and E type aircrafts.

The D and E type aircraft are the wide-body vessels that are used in transatlantic flights. These planes, according to Public Works Minister, Juan Edghill, could carry more than 300 passengers at a time.
In noting that this type of infrastructural upgrade was important for the future of Guyana, Minister Edghill, following a tour of the airport recently, said that this corridor will provide tremendous benefits to Guyanese, mainly through reduced airfares for travel and export.

He said that this type of expansion will allow Guyana’s booming tourism sector to benefit from an influx of visitors.
This is the case because the new air bridges will allow larger planes to arrive in Guyana, affording persons from other continents, such as Europe and Africa, easier access to Guyana.

“Passengers could get cheaper airfares because you could have wide-bodied aircrafts, and in the economies of scale, airlines could start bringing in bigger aircrafts.
“It could also benefit the movement of products out of Guyana [and] the cost of airfreight could go down because the wider body aircraft could carry more produce,” Edghill said. (Cassandra Khan)