President Ali welcomes KLM’s new route linking Guyana to Europe’s premier hub – Amsterdam

Guyana: As the KLM Royal Dutch Airlines is set to launch new services between Georgetown Guyana and Amsterdam, President Dr Irfaan Ali expressed his excitement and said that the airline is connecting the country with one of the most enjoyable and easiest international hubs in the world – Netherlands. 

While speaking at the official launch of the KLM Royal Dutch Airlines Amsterdam to Georgetown route, Dr Ali said from a personal perspective KLM has an extraordinary customer service.

“This is not just about an airline and a flight and a connection. This is a connection to one of the most prestigious hubs in the world and that opens up significant opportunities not only for passengers moving between countries and destinations, but it opens up tremendous opportunities for our economy itself and where we are positioning the economy in relation to our agro processing potential, our cargo potential and our ability to now move product and produce in a more efficient way throughout the region,” he emphasized.

Talking about the aviation sector, he said that a study found out that the aviation sector or the air transport sector contributed 160 million USD to GDP, making 1 percent of the overall GDP of Guyana. President Ali added that around 5200 jobs are directly linked to the air transport sector.  

He called these extraordinary numbers and noted that when one looks at the economic impact of this sector, air transport facilitated the movement of good more than 13,000 tons of cargo. “That is what the air transport sector has been doing for us quietly, quietly in Guyana,” he added.  

The President further talked about the figures and said that four years ago, there were around 182,000 passengers passing through the system but today that number has grown by almost 370,000 to more than 857,000 passengers.  

He revealed that the government right now is focusing on a more ambitious target of having 3 million people passing through the economy by 2030. He mentioned that for this, the government has already been executing developments and added, “As I'm speaking to you now, we're in the final stages of signing off on terminal two of the Cheddi Jagan International Airport because already the existing terminal is inadequate.” 

According to him, the second terminal will be reflective of the country’s architecture, culture and history because the terminal itself will tell the story of the country. 

He added that Guyana does not see KLM as an investor but as a partner with the country and reiterated his duty to help the airline in making their stay successful.