DESPITE repeated attempts at recovery, regional carrier Fly Jamaica remains wingless and seems destined for permanent closure.

The airline suspended operations and made all employee positions redundant due to the lack of aircraft on March 31, 2019. Fly Jamaica is a Jamaican airline headquartered in Kingston, which has been trying to recover after one of its aircraft experienced a runway excursion at Guyana’s Cheddi Jagan International Airport in November 2018.

Since then all attempts at recovery have proven futile with affected passengers in Guyana yet to receive their promised refunds. These affected passengers flights were cancelled when the airline suspended operations in March 2019.

Since then many of them have been waiting on their refunds, which are still not forthcoming. One of those affected have penned a letter to a local newspaper in Guyana making the case for the Guyanese Government to intervene.

The affected passenger is asking for “the intervention of the Minister of Public Works, Juan Edghill, and Guyana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) Director General, Egbert Field to please investigate this situation so that Guyanese can be refunded by Fly Jamaica, or by the Government of Guyana.”

The passenger, who did not identify him or herself, wrote that since the last press conference held by Minister Edghill on May 3, 2021, there have been no further updates.

“The affected citizens of this country need to know when we will be refunded. I had purchased four tickets in July 2018, at a cost of over half of a million dollars; in a few months it will be four years and we still cannot receive a refund,” the passenger wrote.

The affected passenger questioned what happened to the bond that the airlines had to deposit with the Government for crises like these, positing the belief that given the failure of not maintaining a bond for Fly Jamaica, the Government of Guyana should be responsible for refunding the affected passengers.

According to the affected passenger, “it is hard to believe that a foreign company can come into this country, and commit this act against the citizens of this country with little or no representation from the Government. I look forward to a positive response from the Minister of Public Works or GCCA Director.