New restaurants, lounges, kids’ area to enhance CJIA’S services

As works toward expanding the tourism sector and improving options for outbound travellers continue, plans to increase services in and around the Cheddi Jagan International Airport (CJIA) are underway.
During a celebration of Canada Jetlines and Fly Allways’ inaugural flight from Toronto, Canada to Guyana, Public Works Minister Bishop Juan Edghill on Tuesday noted the Government’s intentions to modernise the CJIA facilities.
“Construction is ongoing currently for what will be called our supercentre. We should be able to accommodate another 20 concessions. Capacity to get to the various floors by way of escalators is already in place. It will mean that we will have more options for restaurants,” Edghill said.
“I have seen some comments about people arriving at the airport and they don’t have options. We will not forever be like this, we are improving,” Edghill said.
Further, he requested patience from travellers as the authorities move towards developing these facilities.
He added that there would also be options available for children who are travelling, while they wait on their flights, including play parks, play areas and games.
This expansion further involves making more space for airline offices, with plans to move the current offices out of the main terminal building and build new ones outside of the airport premises.
“So, where we currently have offices, we’d be able to have lounges. You don’t have to be travelling first-class to use a lounge in many airports. You can be an economy passenger, but you’d like to have the comfort of a lounge. We want to be able to put that, so people can pay and get access to the services,” Edghill has said.
The Public Works Minister explained that airports are revenue generators, and with more people entering the country, the hotels, restaurants, tour operators, taxi drivers and other sectors of the economy are expected to greatly benefit.
As such, there are also plans to establish an area where locals can sell their products to new arrivals within the airport.
“As a Government, we are for business development, and in the near future, one of the things you’ll be seeing at the airport on the land side is the development of an area where people can actually sell their craft, paintings and other Guyanese-oriented artefacts, so that persons who are travelling can actually shop at the airport,” Edghill said.
Meanwhile, for those who are not travelling, but are simply visiting the airport with their families, Edghill noted that there will be access to restaurants for them as well.

Enhanced aesthetics
Recently, the CJIA also made efforts to enhance the aesthetics of the shops on airport lands by building a colourful wall. Edghill clarified that business owners actively participated in this process to beautify their facilities.
This area, he noted, is also one that had battled with squatting and security risks, thus steps were taken to provide a safe and secure environment for users of the airport. Expansion and renovation works have been progressing at the international airport for several years now, with China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC) last year completing an extension of the boarding corridor to accommodate two more passenger boarding bridges, thereby providing the airport with six bridges overall to facilitate larger Code D and Code E aircraft.
On Tuesday, the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, and his delegation arrived in Guyana for a one-day visit on one of the world’s largest passenger planes, the Boeing 747-8, a Code F aircraft, according to Edghill. (G13)