CJIA to lose millions due to airport shutdown

The significant reduction of passengers at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport (CJIA) over the next two weeks will undoubtedly have a significant impact on the entity’s revenue.
Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of CJIA, Ramesh Ghir said as a result of COVID-19, the airport has modified its operations for outgoing and incoming flights to Guyana.
“Within the two to three weeks it is going to cost us over 200 million in revenue”, he said.
The CEO said concessions such as the car park, duty-free shops, and food and beverage shops will be extremely affected. Looking past this challenge, Ghir said that stakeholders and staff of the airport will be paid their regular salaries.
“We are going to retain all our employees and have them paid all through this period of time. We did ask for some of them to work from home. We are also trying to avoid congestions and have our employees protected at the airport…in some instances, we have asked employees to utilise their leave during this period.
Ghir further added that following the COVID-19 outbreak, screening was put in place by the airport’s health facility for foreign passengers, particularly from China. However, the CEO said that they were unable to detect Guyana’s first COVID-19 case.
“We did review our CTTV cameras and we were able to identify every airport employee or passenger that would have been in close contact. That information was shared with the Ministry of Health… at least two of the employees of the airport were actually asked to self-quarantine themselves”, he added.
On Tuesday, Director General of the Guyana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) Egbert Field announced that airports in the country will be partially shut down, effective Wednesday 18, 2020. This was due to the coronavirus outbreak.
According to the Director General, the shutdown mainly applies to incoming international passenger flights at the CJIA and Eugene F Correira International Airport.
The shutdown does not apply to outgoing flights, cargo flights, medevac flights, technical flights, and any other specially authorised flight.