Airlines record packed flights over Easter/CWC period
-looking to good summer By Heppilena Ferguson
Stabroek News
April 23, 2007

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Commercial airlines operating out of Guyana are likely counting their profits stemming from packed and increased flights during the Cricket World Cup season, which comes to a close this week. And some of them are already looking ahead and anticipating a good summer.

Travel Span GT Incorporated, which started operating from Guyana in November last year, is one of the airlines with its eyes already set on the horizon.

However, this airline only had four extra flights during this period and this continues, General Manager Mark De Freitas said on Wednesday.

"We are basically still having full flights so we didn't put on that much extra flights but traffic has so far been favourable to us," he said.

Being still fairly new on the local scene, Travel Span is still trying to grab at its market share and so it is anxiously awaiting the upcoming summer season which is considered a peak period for commercial airlines.

De Freitas said the airline was looking forward to summer when it expects to have an increase in flights as already bookings have been pouring in. "So we hope this continues."

Travel Span also recently started flights to Fort Lauderdale in Florida; this route has been showing good potential and so management remains optimistic, De Freitas said.

Caribbean Airlines, which handled some of the intra-regional traffic, reported confidently that it had a good Easter/cricket period.

Area Manager Carlton De Four said the airline had to also put on extra flights to accommodate the increased passenger traffic.

"We had to increase our flights because we had to transport players and officials for the games and carry them around to some host countries and we also had our normal flights which were at times 90 to 95% full and sometimes full," he said.

"Also the CWC period coincided with the Easter period and so all in all we had a good Easter/cricket peak period," De Four said.

North American Airlines did not find it necessary to increase its number of flights each week, Sales Manager Junior Horatio said.

"Basically we maintained our four flights per week and over the cricket period most of our flights were full," Horatio said.

Many Caribbean countries have reported a low visitor turnout and some have attributed this to the early exit of India and Pakistan from the Super Eight segment.

In February and March the local immigration department said visitor arrivals more than doubled the figure recorded during the CWC period.

"Our figures show that there were over 40,000 visitors that came through both the international and regional flights from February 1 to March month end," Deputy Chief Immigration Officer George Vyphuis was quoted as saying.

The Guyana Tourism Authority (GTA) also said it was not disappointed with the visitor turnout for the Cricket World Cup (CWC) noting that cricket was only one big event and the feedback received augured well for the country's future. Its former head, Indira Anandjit had said in an interview with this newspaper that she was pleased with the arrivals for March, which, according to her, totalled 18, 622. She said the "peak period" between March 18 and 31 saw some 10,500 persons coming here. "What is good about it too is that 8,009 were first-time visitors," she added. She said the figures for after March 31 were still being compiled.

A number of local hotel and guesthouse owners and managers were disappointed over the considerable shortfall in the number of visitors for the Providence matches. They cited too the early exit of the Indian team from the tournament as a possible reason for the visitor dearth, a fact that meant that probably a few thousand spectators would have cancelled travel and accommodation arrangements, sold the tickets that they would have bought for the later matches and returned home disappointed.

The consensus was that while the hotels reported that business was brisker than usual, they made it clear they have experienced nothing remotely resembling the sustained "full house" which the CWC Local Organizing Committee had more than hinted at a few months ago.

In fact, some of the smaller hotels said they had already begun to focus on business beyond Cricket World Cup.