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100 years for aviation in Guyana!
Aviation in Guyana is celebrating 100 years. Former Guyana Airways Corporation employee, Colin Lovell, who is now employed as a Manager with international carrier Delta Airlines, says that aviation in Guyana has come a long way.
Lovell said he started in the airline industry as a youngster in 1971 and stayed in the business for over 41 years during which he witnessed the first domestic crash and the Jonestown Tragedy.
Colin Lovell
Lovell told Kaieteur News that he started off at the Roraima Travel Service, which was owned by Aaron Bostwick. Lovell said that this was not the current Roraima Company.
At the time he started there, Lovell said that he was just out of secondary school. He said he spent about a year with that company.
Lovell went on to say that he then went to Guyana Airways which was then only a domestic carrier. He was with the company when the Jonestown massacre occurred in November 1978.
He was the one who planned the flight for Congressman Leo Ryan. He was supposed to be on the flight but as fate would have it, he did not go simply because the flight’s departure time was pushed back until later in the day.
Lovell said that he was courting at the time and that he didn’t want to spend the night in the interior. He soon learnt about what happened.
He remembers the first domestic crash here in Guyana, in 1976, where Captain Dhanraj and First Officer Frankie Watson perished. The lone survivor of the crash was Compton Da Silva. He came back to work with the company as a foreman within the organization, he passed away several years ago, Lovell said.
He said that he got exposure as the station manager at a Barbados-based company in 1980, he spent ten years there. His defining years in his career he said thought him to be independent and not to depend on anyone.
In terms of changes in aircraft, Lovell said that there is a new variety. When he first came into aviation he said there was the workhorse, which was an American helicopter, the fourth of a line of tandem rotor helicopters designed and built by Piasecki Helicopter (later Boeing Vertol). Commonly called the “flying banana”, it was a multi-mission helicopter, utilizing wheels, skis, or floats.
Lovell then remembers that there was the Caribou which is a Canadian-designed and produced specialized cargo aircraft with short takeoff and landing (STOL) capability. The Caribou was first flown in 1958 and although mainly retired from military operations, is still in use in small numbers as a rugged “bush” aircraft.
There were the Twin Otters that were capable of landing on short airstrips.
Then there was the Skyvan that was brought in by the government. This type of aircraft can hold up to 19 persons and has a twin turboprop aircraft. It was first manufactured by the Short Brothers of Belfast, Northern Ireland. It is used mainly for short-haul freight and skydiving.
In Guyana, Lovell said, the Cessna and the Caravan are also two popular aircraft right now. Moreso, Lovell said that internationally the airlines such as Delta are using the 757 and the 767.
He said that he has witnessed aviation move from manual processing—tickets were written manually; baggage handling was manual— to something just operated by the flick of a button.
Lovell said that gone are the days when the staircase was manually operated, when baggage was hoisted manually to and from the aircraft. Today there is electronic booking, electric staircase, belt loading of baggage and a host of other developments.
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