Ogle Airport ready for inter-regional flights
…directors commission $400M terminal
Kaieteur News
March 17, 2007
The Ogle Airport (OA) was, yesterday, officially opened to inter regional flights with the commissioning of a $400 million terminal to end the first phase of a project to upgrade the facilities there.
Apart from boosting the aviation industry, the new terminal represents a partnership between the government and the private sector, with five investors contributing heavily to the project.
The five investors are: Beni Sankar, Member of the Board of Ogle Airport Inc. (OAI); Michael Correia Jnr., Chairman of the Board of OAI; Captain Mazahar Ally, Member of OAI Board; Captain Gerry Gouveia, Member of OAI Board; and Anthony Mekdeci, Ogle Airport Manager and Project Coordinator.
President Bharrat Jagdeo, who addressed the opening ceremony, lauded the local investors for taking the “risk” to invest locally.
“This facility is a product of something that we lack in this country, not because of the fault of anyone, but because of the hard times we went through when we lost the ability to take risk. What you have here is an effort by five entrepreneurs who are willing to take the risk.”
At the ceremony were dignitaries, Government Ministers, private sector representatives and members of the Diplomatic Corps.
President Jagdeo added that there is still a long way to go before the airport becomes viable.
Michael Correia described the airport as a continuously emerging and expanding national project. He added that, with the addition of the new terminal, the airport has satisfied all of the safety requirements of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO).
“The Ogle of old has gone. It has been long in coming, spanning the sitting of four Presidents, and some eighteen years… We are ready now to accommodate the smaller regional airline operators (and are) capable of providing direct linkages to the International Airports in Cayenne, Boa Vista, Porto Ordaz and Paramaribo, and to serve as a hub for through traffic from the Caribbean,” Correia said.
The first phase of the enhancement project included the construction of a 2,000-foot long by 60 ft wide Class 1A runway built to international specifications, aircraft taxi and parking areas, and the opening of the new terminal building housing Customs, Immigration, port health authority and air traffic control.
The present terminal building is designed to accommodate about 75,000 passengers per year.
Correia explained that the first phase has been modified to allow for the project to move into the second phase without disrupting the operations of the airport.
“We are well on the way with preparing for the second phase of the development, which we expect to be completed by the end of 2008,” Correia stated.
The second phase will further widen the runway to 100 feet and increase its length to 4000 feet, complying with ICAO's Class 2C requirements.
It will accommodate aircraft such as the Twin Turbo Prop Dash Eight 300. It will also include the expansion of this terminal to accommodate the movement of 150,000 passengers per year.
The second phase will also further widen the taxiways and increase the size of the parking aprons. It will provide for additional drainage, fencing, and the installation of runway lights, as well as an improved navigation system and the upgrade of the Fire Service.
At present, the airport will operate from 6:00 hrs.to 18:00 hrs. daily.
However, it is envisaged that on completion of the second phase, and with an EPA Permit Approval, the airport will operate up to 22:00 hrs.
“Ogle will be ready to accommodate the airline operators from the Caribbean, potentially Caribbean Airlines, LIAT and American Eagle,” Correia stated.
Ogle Airport has been able to benefit from a grant financing by the European Union, obtained through the initiative of the Government and CARICOM. This grant will provide funding for about two-thirds of the cost of the second phase of the development project.
Linking the South
Secretary General of CARICOM, Edwin Carrington, said the improved Ogle Airport forms the bedrock of the vision of Guyana as an emerging hub for travel in the Caribbean Region and the southern hemisphere.
“Apart from facilitating regional and hemispheric travel, I also see the development of a whole new social and commercial environment in this area. The proximity to each other of the CARICOM Secretariat, the International Conference Centre, the University of Guyana, the Ogle Municipal Airport and, I gather, soon an international five-star hotel and a shopping centre, with all of that, we will be well on the way to equipping Georgetown to emerge as the virtual Brussels of the Caribbean,” Carrington stated.
He added that the airport has moved from being essentially a domestic airport, one providing regular air services to the hinterlands of Guyana, to one that is well poised to become a regional airport and a new and strategic point in the air transport network of the Community.
“It will facilitate the achievement of the central essential feature of a Community, that is, the co-mingling of peoples. That is what our Community is – the co-mingling of peoples -- and certainly this development will greatly enhance the achievement of that objective. Also, it will contribute significantly to the realisation of the Community's transportation policy,” Carrington said.
Correia also noted the importance of the upgrade, since it comes on the heels of Guyana's successful hosting of the Rio Summit, which firmly established the country as the bridge between CARICOM and Guyana's continental neighbours to the south.
“Guyana benefits from the establishment of a second national airport with permanent, immovable infrastructure, built, financed, and managed by private investors, supported and regulated by the Government. The airport is a vital component of our country's aviation transportation infrastructural development,” Correia said.
President Jagdeo noted that the Government started some time in the 90s with an assessment of the aviation facilities and determined that, if Guyana is to become a gateway into South America and for tourism to become a budding sector, attention had to be shifted to the aviation sector.
Partnership
Correia noted that the upgrade is a new concept for development in Guyana.
He said that, in 1999, when GAC's operations, having cost billions of dollars in losses, were closed, the Aircraft Owners' Association (AOA) gave the Government a guarantee that it would provide an efficient and cost effective domestic air service at competitive rates.
“We believe that we have delivered on that undertaking. We have served as an example of a professional association of extremely diverse and competitive private businessmen working together, in a highly complex and regulated industry, in a common cause to serve the nation,” Correia noted.
He added that, with the renewed confidence in the political stability resulting from a peaceful election, the members of the AOA, in their individual capacity, are, in addition to investing in the airport, expanding their organisations to cater for the increased demand that is anticipated.
“We have kept the faith in our country. We have stayed the course. It has taken courage, fortitude, patience and persistence,” Correia said.