TOM GILL / LONDON
Guyanese start-up Universal Airlines is on schedule to launch services this week to the USA with a wet-leased Boeing 767 as it bids to plug the gap in this market left by the collapse of Guyana Airways earlier this year.
The privately owned carrier starts five-times weekly flights from Georgetown to New York Kennedy on 13 December, and is aiming to capture 60% of the route by February, according to vice-president Mart Defreitas.
The airline - owned by two Guyanese nationals resident in the USA including company president Sudarshan Singh - is banking on demand from local residents and Guyanese expatriates, which, it argues, have been left high and dry by the collapse of Guyana Airways in May.
"Being a Guyanese carrier we are going to provide a Guyanese service. Our rivals do not provide that," says Defreitas. BWI of Trinidad & Tobago and New York-based North American Airlines fly scheduled services to Guyana.
There are more than 500,000 Guyanese living in the USA. The airline also plans to add Miami to its schedule next year to capture traffic from elsewhere in the USA. It already has permission to fly to the southern hub.
The carrier will start operations with a 243-seat 767-300ER wet-leased from LOT Polish airlines. During the first quarter next year it aims to add another leased aircraft to the fleet to cover additional scheduled and charter destinations, including Trinidad &Tobago.
Defreitas claims that better management, more experienced staff and cheaper leasing arrangements will allow the airline to succeed where its predecessor failed.
Source: Flight International
