KINGSTON - An aeronautical surveillance service will be launched in November 2015 announced Public Infrastructure Minister, David Patterson, who was at the time speaking at the commissioning of Trans Guyana Airways’ new Raytheon Beechcraft 1900d aircraft last evening.
“Guyana will be the first country in the Caribbean and South America to introduce the use of Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B) and we have made provisions in our 2016 budget to continue this project towards completion,” the Minister informed the audience.
ADS-B is a cooperative surveillance technology in which an aircraft determines its position via satellite navigation and periodically broadcasts it, enabling it to be tracked.
Minister Patterson noted that as of August, there was a six percent increase in international passenger arrivals at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport (CJIA). There was an overall total of 165,000 incoming passengers, the second highest recorded at the main port of entry.
As a result, he posited that the time has come, for the aeronautical surveillance service. Discussions have also commenced to improve the country's search and rescue operations.
Meanwhile, the public infrastructure minister disclosed that his ministry is aggressively pursuing other carriers to operate at CJIA and will be meeting with several of them in this regard.
Speaking on the local front, Tourism Minister, Cathy Hughes expressed remorse that so many of Guyana’s interior airstrips have been in a deplorable state over the past two decades, but assured that the new administration will work to improve them in the near future.
“….and I know that the Ministry of Public Infrastructure has drawn up a work plan that will see a number of these interior airstrips being cleared, resurfaced, generally upgraded and lengthened over the next few months,” she added.
Minister Hughes noted that the main spin off benefits of this project is to provide a solution to transportation woes for persons living in the hinterland and to give tourism a boost. (National Communications Network)
