Guyana Airways 2000 suspends Waterchris catering contract
Guyana Airways (GA) 2000 has suspended the catering contract with Waterchris Hotel for meals for its Georgetown-New York and Georgetown-Toronto routes. Its meals are being supplied by a New York catering service on both legs of its North American routes. Waterchris provided catering services for GA 2000's predecessor company for about two decades. Waterchris was given a three-month trial when the airline was launched under majority private sector ownership earlier this month. The letter suspending Waterchris' contract was dated July 22 and the suspension took effect from July 24. Contacted for a comment, Gregory Lewis, who manages Waterchris, told Stabroek News that he had not been informed by the GA 2000 management of any problems with the service as regards the quality of the food the hotel supplied. He did concede that during the trial run by GA 2000 there were some problems with the timely delivery of the meals for the flight but blamed this on the lack of coordination between the airport security and the airline's security department. But Lewis said that there was no occasion on which the airline's departure was affected by the late delivery of meals. Stabroek News checked with some passengers who have used the service since it began its operations on July 9 and they all said that the food on the outward leg was good, some even said excellent. They also praised the cabin service which they described as excellent. Efforts to reach GA 2000 chairman, Yesu Persaud and its chief executive officer, Anthony Mekdeci for a comment were unsuccessful. Stabroek News was informed that Persaud was out of the country and Mekdeci was unavailable when his office was first contacted and later was told that he would be at Timehri after lunch. Kit Nascimento, the airline's public relations consultant, explained to Stabroek News that airline catering was a specialised operation which had to be schedule oriented and involved more than just preparing a meal. He said that GA 2000 still hoped to work with Waterchris so that the service offered met the international standard the airline required for its service. Nascimento stressed that GA 2000 was interested in dealing with local suppliers and related businesses without compromising its own service. About the use of the North American catering service, Nascimento pointed out that none of the other airlines operating out of Guyana use local caters. He explained that the airline before its start-up had invited most of the caterers, including the Le Meridien Pegasus, which it felt could provide it with catering services. However, he said, that all except Waterchris had declined explaining that they were not yet in a position to provide such a service. Airline sources have told Stabroek News that airline catering was very quality oriented and this not only included the meals supplied but how they were packaged, consistently timely delivery and the same high quality from meal to meal. (Patrick Denny) 
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