St. Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) and Qatar on Thursday signed an air services agreement, paving the way for airlines to operate any number of flights between both countries without any restrictions.
Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves signed on behalf of SVG and the Head of Agreements and International Relations, Department of Air Transport and Airport Affairs, Mohammed Faleh Alhajri of the Qatar Civil Aviation Authority signed on behalf of the Arab nation.
Gonsalves expressed gratitude to the Qatari government for offering their services to SVG. He said Alhajri will “secure the approval of his Cabinet” on his return to Qatar.
Likewise, Gonsalves will seek the approval of Cabinet in SVG on the agreement.
The prime minister said he would be invited to Qatar for formal signing in that country.
Gonsalves extended gratitude to the Emir of Qatar and his government for coming to an agreement with the Government and people of SVG, on air services.
He also expressed gratitude to the “technical persons from Qatar and also from St. Vincent and the Grenadines for their tremendous work in concluding the memorandum and the agreement”.
Gonsalves said the Argyle International Airport will begin operating soon, adding that it is important for the country to have air services agreements “with a number of countries with which we are friendly and which have shown interest in the development of our country and for us to have this as the framework for the actual, possible operations of air services”.
In reply, Alhajri extended thanks to Gonsalves for “his warm reception and kind hospitality” and expressed pride in the signing of the air services, noting that Qatar is the first Arab country to do sign such agreement.
Alhajri was accompanied to SVG by Senior Legal Researcher, Essa Abdulla Al-Malki.
A joke, no?
Man, I’m tired of this bull sh**t this government is trying to pull on our people. Come on Vincentians wake to hell up! How many people will be flying from Qatar to come to SVG? What about us in the diaspora, USA, UK, Canada and the like where many of us Vincentians reside? What happened to AA, JetBlue and even our own Caribbean Airline? These are our home based airlines, why are we not hearing anything about them? It shows that the airport is far from being ready because it takes strike standards and completion conditions to be in place before clearance is given for these airlines to land at Argyle. I wish this government could be straight forward with the people than just trying to take for a ride, every single time. But as they say, time longer than day!
Ahmen, brother, ahmen.
Qatar Airways, the country’s only international carrier, services just two destinations in Latin America and the Caribbean: Brazil and Argentina.
What is the prospect that little St. Vincent will be its first Caribbean destination?
This regime has been able to fool the Vincentian masses about this Argyle boondoggle since 2005 for one simple reason: we are a very foolish people easily deceived by snake-oil salesmen.
Well I would buy a standby ticket for Qatar and there must be at least one Qatari Camel herder who would like to fly to Argyle, “no its not in Scotland”.
I really like flying on empty aircraft it gives the crew more time to pamper you.
Another memorandum of understanding did you say, is that anything like a coalition of the willing? A memorandum of misunderstanding or a coalition of the unwilling, we have plenty of experience with both those.
Ah hope that that aint their best shot.
So, the name calling start? Then the secret out and we go hear the rest seven or so names?
I hear a name, so the name calling start. Then, is the fierce competition done over and done with and about time to and they go tell us who the rest seven or so is?
Three years later, is Air Berlin still calling Beache looking to improve their service into the Caribbean (through Argyle), which is huge for us. Yes, Beache?
Does the agreement pave the way for hot Ju-C and cold roti? And the first 300 passengers for Buccament done line up for September? Burns?
New elections are on the way, hence the rubbish.
Whenever any article appears which in any way features Ralph Gonsalves I always look for untruths, even downright lies within the content.
Its most unfortunate that I have to brand him a serial liar; I believe hardly a sentence is spoken by him without containing a lie. But I suppose he did tell us himself that he sometimes tells lies. But being now a self confessed liar it was par for the course that he did not tell us he always tells lies, because even the statement of telling lies sometimes contained lies.
So what did I conclude from this article and my ensuing research? Mr. Mohamed Faleh Alhajri was not a representative of the Qatar government he is a representative of the Airport Affairs Civil Aviation Authority Doha. His position is Head of Agreements &International Relations Department of Air Transport & Airport Affairs Civil Aviation Authority Doha QATAR. He is not a diplomat nor does he represent the Arab nation as stated in the article and he will be presenting the article of memorandum document or agreement as Gonsalves would have us believe to his board not to the government. This is only a government affair because Gonsalves says so, because he wants to make the deal something that it is not. Regardless of the memorandum the Qataris may never fly here, and there is no agreement for us to ever fly to Qatar. Fly with what we do not even own a single aircraft, and Kelly or Pongos tiny aircraft would never get there in a week.
This is little more than a nonsense thing to fool the people that things are moving forward, they are not and there is another huge scandal story about to surface regarding the airport, how its safety and unsuitability for large or heavy aircraft is without doubt now. Everything is to fool the people, its about pretense that things are happening for the better, they are not.
We must not confuse this with airlines, this is nothing to do with airlines. This organization is like the US FAA and the UK CAA, they approve airports, so I sent them a message of truth. Because it would appear that they have been lied to, or at the very least the problems have not been brought to their attention.
I have also sent an email to the FAA, CAA, and the EASA the European Authority for aviation.
They all have to know the truth so I have told them the truth.