FLY Jamaica has completed most of its documentation with the Guyana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) and last week was issued with the foreign operations specifications, Director General of the Civil Aviation Authority, Zulficar Mohamed said yesterday.

Providing an update to members of the press at the office of Public Works Minister, Robeson Benn, at Wight’s Lane, Kingston, Mohamed said Fly Jamaica has already been designated by the Guyana Government to operate the New York route and Canada.
Fly Jamaica now has to post the $40M bond with the government and apply to authorities in the United States to operate the Georgetown-U.S. route.
“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has already been in contact with the U.S. authorities and in accordance with the air services agreement that we recently signed, they’re willing to grant them approval with that. So the onus is on them to do the application and we will support it,” Mohamed remarked.
Meanwhile, government had earlier signalled its intention to provide Guyanese with adequate and affordable air travel in and out of Guyana, especially in light of the recent pullout by Delta Airlines. Delta officially announced last February that it was pulling out from the Guyana route. Mohamed also presented the following updates:

Fly Guyana
With regard to Fly Guyana, Mohamed said a representative did present some documentation to local authorities but not in the format of an application.
The representative later met with the GCAA and went through the entire process of application and the requirements. “We are still awaiting a submission from him. Nothing has come officially from that organisation,” Mohamed informed.

LIAT
According to Mohamed, LIAT went through some issues with the GCAA in terms of approval to operate into Ogle.
However, it has managed to get over that hurdle and the GCAA has since issued it with a foreign operations specification to include the new aircraft which they have acquired.
“They have indicated that they will commence operations into Ogle sometime in the next week. They will continue to operate the night flights into Timehri and the day flights into Ogle. So it’s going to be a daily operation into Ogle and into Timehri too.

Suriname Airways
Mohamed reported that Suriname Airways intends to add another route and has recently acquired a third Boeing 737. “So now, they have three of them available to provide those services.”