Ghir announces plans for airport in 2013

Artist’s impression of CJIA’s new terminal

Cheddi Jagan International Airport (CJIA) Chief Executive Officer Ramesh Ghir has announced that the airport’s income for 2012 amounted to Gy$1.094 billion as compared to Gy$748 million collected in 2011. This Gy$346 million or 46 per cent increase was as a result of additional rental/ concession fees and passenger service charges.
Of the income collected, Gy$424 million was transferred to the Consolidated Fund, 33 per cent more than the Gy$319 million that was transferred in 2011, while expenditure amounted to Gy$462 million as compared to the Gy$365 million spent in 2011.
With regards to passenger arrivals, there was an increase of 13 per cent for 2012. The Immigration Division processed 267,652 passengers for 2012, as compared to the 236,344 in 2011. Total passenger movements for 2012 amounted to 543,435 or 15 per cent more than that of 2011.

Increased flights
The year 2012 saw 4630 international aircraft movements as compared to 3908 in 2011; an increase of 18 per cent.
With regards to the Airport Expansion Project, work on the preliminary designs commenced, and actual construction is expected to commence in the second quarter of 2013. The contract period is 32 months.
The management of the CJIA also provided training opportunities for its staff in areas such as customer service, and senior management.
Other capacity building areas included radio telephony training for all security and airside staff, basic first aid/ CPR, food safety for all airport food service providers, an airport emergency exercise was successfully staged, security integration workshop and continuous online training for all its security ranks with support from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) were embarked on.
In relation to airline services, Caribbean Airlines launched a direct service, BW527, from JFK to CJIA and a direct service to Toronto, Canada was also added. These direct flights are being operated using the Boeing 767- 300 aircraft.
Meanwhile, Suriname Airways commenced a roundtrip service on the Paramaribo- Georgetown-Miami route twice weekly with its 126-seat B737- 300 aircraft. LIAT continued to provide daily service on the Barbados-Georgetown route using the Dash 8 aircraft.
Delta maintained its four times weekly service to New York with the Boeing 757 aircraft. To cater for the increased traffic during the peak Christmas season, Delta increased its frequency to daily flights. Fly Jamaica operated a proving flight; the aircraft type Boeing 757-200. This flight had 92 non-revenue passengers, consisting of inspectors of the Jamaican Civil Aviation Authority, airline staff and other industry stakeholders. The aircraft is configured with 12 business class seats and 186 economy seats, giving a total seating capacity for 198 passengers.
During the year, the airport lost the services of two airlines due to economic reasons – REDjet and EZjet Airlines.

Plans for 2013
Ghir highlighted that some of the goals for 2013 will be to commence the construction of the airport expansion project, conduct a full scale emergency exercise, rehabilitate the departure section washrooms, revise the airport emergency plan and airport security programme, increase the security complement beyond 70 ranks, further reduction of black vulture population to further prevent bird strikes, install lighted aerodrome signs and upgrade the existing sewage treatment plant.
With regards to civil aviation, the authority, in the past year, has been able to successfully install all navigational and communication equipment, while government also provided funding which was used to procure high frequency communication and security equipment for the control tower. There was an increase in aircraft operators’ fleet to eight and new air service and maintenance operators have been approved, a new fuel farm installed at Ogle Airport, and several new pilots and air traffic controllers have been licensed.
For 2013, equipment to be used for tracking aircraft will be procured, and equipment is also being sourced to facilitate communication with air traffic controllers along the flight routes. These will be installed this year.