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(Georgetown, Guyana), February 21, 2008: In
addressing concerns regarding North American Airlines'
decision to terminate their scheduled service between Guyana
and the United States, the country's Minister of Public
Works, Robeson Benn said this week, that he is confident the
airline industry will not be affected. “Delta
officials are currently in the country doing the evaluations
with respect to coming to Guyana from July,” said Minister
Benn. That airline announced in Atlanta that it has received
US government approval for the service. He added that
interest is also being shown by another large international
aviation operator to bring in international flights.
North American Airlines has been operating a non-stop
service between Guyana and the United States since its
inauguration in 1999. On Tuesday North American announced in
a press release that the scheduled service to Georgetown,
Lagos, Nigeria and Accra, Ghana will cease on May 20 this
year.
“North American has a long history of serving the New
York-Guyana market, and we were the first U.S. airline in
decades to fly non-stop service from the United States to
sub-Saharan Africa,” said Rob Binns, Chief Commercial and
Planning Officer. “We have been pleased that all of these
markets have performed on a revenue basis as we anticipated.
What now makes these markets untenable is the rising cost of
fuel. We have seen our jet fuel costs increase 60 percent
since we entered the Africa markets in 2005."
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