A Guyanese charter airline says it will expand its services into St. Vincent and set up a hub in the country when the Argyle International Airport begins operating.
The airport is scheduled to begin operating on Feb. 14, but Roraima Airways did not say when it plans to begin servicing the country when it made the announcement on its YouTube Channel on Wednesday.
The airline told iWitness News on Thursday that it has a fleet of three Britten-Norman Islander twin-engine aircraft that can seat nine passengers each and two BN Trislander triple engine aircraft that can seat 16 passengers each.
It has a contract with Fed-Ex to fly cargo from Trinidad to Guyana three times a week and makes chartered flights to Caribbean countries.
iWitness News was told that the airline is considering introducing another type of aircraft.
Roraima Airways was established in November 1992 commencing its operations as a domestic airline doing charters in Guyana and the Caribbean with particular emphasis on executive clientele, the airline says on its website.
Over the years, the company has expanded its range of services into ten divisions, including, passengers or cargo air charters, travel agency, tours, hotels and restaurant and airline aviation security services.
In the YouTube video on Wednesday, the airline’s chief executive officer, Captain Gerald Gouveia announced the expansion of service to Argyle International Airport.
“Roraima is going to be expanding our operations into St. Vincent. St. Vincent just finished building a brand new, spanking, modern airport in the middle of the Caribbean Sea and we have always have had a good relationship with St. Vincent, the government of St. Vincent,” Gouveia said.
He said his son, who had gone on a flight to Antigua, would land in St. Vincent and would be meeting with Vincentian officials.
“Because we really want to give effect to this whole concept of CARICOM and working together,” Gouveia said.
“And I think the government of St. Vincent had a lot of vision in building this new airport. Brand spanking new, 11,000-foot runway with jetways and modern terminal building and we are going to be working with them in our airlines. Our airlines are going to be going into St. Vincent, connecting St. Vincent and Guyana and using St. Vincent as a hub across the Caribbean,” he said.
The EC$629 million Argyle International Airport, will begin operations on Feb. 14, six years behind scheduled with a chartered flight from Canada and New York, respectively, and scheduled LIAT flights.
This is all the low-end service we will ever get at this stillborn facility.
C. Ben I gust they must start from somewhere
So I will hope that they can only go up from here.
Don’t know if to laugh, cuss or cry after all these years.
This didn’t need an international airport because it is a regional carrier only!
Hello and respects Mr internet policeman, Phd Professor C. ben-David. You must tell the whole story or what you write can be interpreted as untrue.
More toy aeroplanes for a broken toy airport.
If the airport had been traditionally funded and finished in 4 years it may have been viable.
Especially if it had had been scaled down in size to a jetport suitable for 250 seat aircraft instead of 400 seat aircraft.
If the cost was halved which it should have been, and the engineering correctly carried out, after the sale of Arnos Vale we may of stood a chance of having none or little debt.
The problem was the idiocy of using the airport as a political vote catcher and using the Cubans to do the work with no overrun penalty clause. Then the pretence that the Venezuelans were paying the Cubans wages.
Link that to all the other lies and whatever way you look at it we are in a lot of trouble.
I think he’s aiming to concentrate on the Grenadines. He may even get involved with some of LIAT routes, since LIAT is on its way out.