Despite COVID-19 airports lockdown, government allowing several passenger flights in

May 14, 2020 News

Kaieteur News understands that notwithstanding the Granger administration having issued a gazetted order ending passenger flights into Guyana, there have been several flights ferrying dozens of persons into Guyana over the past two weeks, with more scheduled over the next few days.
According to the government’s order:
“The Cheddi Jagan International and Eugene F. Correia International Airports shall remain closed to all international flights except outgoing flights, cargo flights, medical evacuation flights, technical stops for fuel only and special authorized flights.”
This has seen a cancellation of all commercial flights into Guyana, and limited special flights out arranged by diplomatic missions to get their citizens out of Guyana. A special dispensation seems to have been created for the petroleum sector however.
This paper understands that at 3AM yesterday, a Boeing 767-200ER owned by US charter service Omni Air arrived at Cheddi Jagan International Airport, direct from Houston, Texas, carrying roughly 70 oil sector workers. The plane departed around 5 PM yesterday with about 120 workers. Between today and tomorrow, there is expected to be similar charter flights from both Houston and Heathrow. On April 29, a British Airways charter had brought in the first post-lockdown batch of sector employees. News agency, Newsroom Guyana, reported yesterday that Director-General of the Guyana Civil Aviation Authority, Egbert Field had confirmed that special approval had been given for “6-8 flights of oil workers.”
This practice, particularly considering the numbers involved, is notable for two reasons. The first is that the government has cited COVID-19 precautions for its position on not allowing Guyanese stranded overseas to return to their country, despite consistent appeals, ranging from students in Cuba to persons stuck in the United States. While the government has sent care packages to the former group, persons in the US have registered a variety of urgent reasons for seeking to return to Guyana, from mounting debt to inability to access healthcare due to the current strain, which the pandemic has placed on the US system.
The second notable reason this exception being made for the oil companies is that a strict adherence to the lockdown order is the reason Granger gave in his refusal to allow Carter Center observers and International Republic Institute technical support personnel, an estimated total of six persons, back into the country. In his response to American Ambassador Sarah-Ann Lynch’s appeal for the teams to be let back in, Granger responded through his Foreign Affairs Minister, Dr. Karen Cummings, citing the lockdown of the airports via the COVID-19 Emergency Measures, stating, “The public health situation in Guyana has changed drastically since the General and Regional Elections were held on 2nd March as you aware… The Government of Guyana requests that its measures to protect its citizens from disease are respected.”

It should be noted that a CARICOM high-level team had also received special authorization to fly into Guyana to observe the elections recount process.

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