Guyana seeking to improve 63.4% ICAO rating as aviation industry grows

– relocation of CJIA’s ATC tower to facilitate more aircraft

At the latest International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) audit in 2024, Guyana was given a rating of 63.4 per cent – a figure that the country is now looking to improve, with local authorities revealing that steps are already being undertaken in this regard.

Speaking at a press briefing to announce the hosting of a Global Aviation Safety Forum in September in Georgetown, Aviation Minister Deodat Indar revealed that the audit of the entire local aviation sector two years ago, which was last done in 2007, resulted in Guyana receiving the highest rating in the Latin American (LATAM) region.

“[In] 2024, we went through that audit again, where they came back and they checked everything…and we passed with 63.4 per cent. In the last four audits prior to that, nobody scored more than that percentage because it looks at everything, including your laws, the regulations, your enforcements, your filings, your people, their competence, their certification – you name it, everything they check. We scored and passed with a comfortable pass…63.4 was the highest in the LATAM region,” the Minister noted.

Despite this feat, however, Guyana is already working to improve this ranking. According to Indar, there were eight thematic areas containing approximately 714 questions that interrogated specific areas within the aviation sector, including legislation and regulations.

While Guyana had passed a series of updated laws and regulations in preparation for the audit, the Minister explained that because this was done close to the auditing period, there was not much implementation activity carried out, and so the country scored low in the operation area, though it received over 80 per cent on the overall regulatory side.

Nevertheless, Director General of the Guyana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA), Lt Col (Ret’d) Egbert Field, has indicated that steps have already been taken to correct these and other areas in preparation for the next ICAO audit.

“Where we fell was the implementation, so all the front-end has been taken care of… We are now working on the implementation of the regulations and the standards which were put in place, so we are very, very much on track,” he stated.

The GCAA Head further added that with regulation adjustments, there needs to be an upgrade on-the-job training – something the country was still undergoing at the time of the audit. However, DG Field noted that a GCAA officer has since been mandated to deal with the corrective action plan and reports every fortnight on the progress, which shows the country is on target to meet the ICAO requirements and ultimately increase its rating.

After-audit inspection

That action plan, according to Lt Col (Ret’d) Field, is on track, especially since the country aims to call for an ICAO Coordinated Validation Mission (ICVM), which is an after-audit inspection to verify the corrective actions a country has implemented to resolve previously identified safety deficiencies.

According to DG Field, “States hardly call for ICVM, but Guyana is that confident that we will call them in to examine us so that our score can go up, and that should be sometime next year… We have all the required inspectors… [The Government and the aviation Minister have] given the go-ahead to employ operations inspectors and airworthiness inspectors, so we have the complement.”

Meanwhile, the officials further ruled out that the local aviation accidents, especially the horrific December 2023 Guyana Defence Force’s (GDF) helicopter crash, would impact the upcoming review, explaining that that was a military operation while the ICAO audit only covers civil aviation.

Though a draft copy of the findings from that deadly crash, which took the lives of five servicemen, was leaked several weeks ago, Minister Indar reminded us that under the Chicago Convention, the country is not required to release the report due to national security implications. Section 13 of this ICAO convention contains non-disclosure provisions.

Aviation Improvements

Nonetheless, the audit ranking comes as Guyana continues to strengthen its aviation apparatus, for which the country has received high rankings.

For example, just last year, it was reported that Guyana achieved an outstanding overall score of 80.12 per cent in the ICAO’s Aviation Security Audit – the highest in the Latin American and Caribbean region, surpassing the global average of 72 per cent and showing a significant improvement from the country’s previous score of 62.90 per cent in 2016.

More recently, however, the Cheddi Jagan International Airport (CJIA) underwent the Airports Council International (ACI) Survey, a globally recognised Airport Service Quality (ASQ) programme that measures passenger satisfaction and establishes industry benchmarks for customer experience. The CJIA was ranked as the top airport for passenger experience in the entire LAC region.

According to Indar, this was a result of the heavy investments the Government has been making to enhance operations at the country’s main international airport, including the border control and e-gate system as well as the e-passport issuance system that all went live last year.

Now, the CJIA is undergoing major infrastructure upgrades, including the upgrade of the arrival and departure terminals, a new concessionary and duty-free zone, a new administration building, and a new 150,000 sq ft Terminal 2 building to accommodate the growing number of visitors that the country is receiving.

Control Tower

These expansion works will see the relocation of the current Air Traffic Control (ATC) tower to open up new space to facilitate more aircraft at the CJIA.

“That tower has to move from there… and the reason being… we have no place to park planes anymore. Sometimes when all the planes start to come in, one has to wait on the other to come into the taxiway and the parking lot. So, we have to move [the tower] and expand the airport further so that we can have parking aprons for more planes,” the Minister noted.

In recent years, Guyana has seen an increase in the number of airlines operating here, moving from four in 2020 to now 16 airlines, with this figure expected to grow further as the country enters into air connectivity agreements with more than a dozen nations.

Similarly, in the last five years, local aviation operators have been buying new fleets, which will increase the country’s local assets to about 110 by the end of 2025, the first time in Guyana’s history that this figure will cross the 100 marks. This reflects a 41 per cent increase compared to 2020, when there were about 78 local assets.

Additionally, the number of aircraft movements is expected to rise from 63,863 in 2020 to 99,508 at the end of 2025, demonstrating a 56 per cent growth. Moreover, the Government has plans to establish two new ICAO-standard airports in Regions Six and Two, while also improving over 50 hinterland airstrips across the country.

These are complemented by human capacity development initiatives to build local aviation expertise and plans to establish an aviation school in Guyana.