Bring Antrak Air back– Goldstar Airlines CEO

Source: Maritime & Transport Digest  -   Government has been urged to bring back local carrier, ANTRAK by rescuing the airline from its woes and to ensure that all other domestic or local airlines are given the necessary and needed support to enable them thrive, remain viable and profitable.

Chief Executive officer of Goldstar Airlines, Mr. Eric Bannerman says the direct intervention of the state will encourage local operators and would-be-operators to favourably compete with the foreign airlines and will create the attendant jobs that come with the operations of such airlines.

Some Domestic airlines in the recent past have had to fold up following what they say is the expensive nature of operating in the country with the recent one being ANTRAK AIR which folded up its operations in the country about a month ago.

This scenario, according Mr. Bannerman, does not augur well for the industry and that the earlier government put in place measures to deal with the trend in which foreign airlines operate at the detriment and disadvantage of local airlines, the better it will be for the industry, adding that such practices must be discouraged.

Mr. Bannerman wondered why for instance, South African Airways would be allocated the Washington route when his own airline, GOLDSTAR applied for the same route and was refused, adding that it was standard practice in most developed economies including the United Kingdom and the United States of America to prioritise airlines registered in those countries and rush to their aid when they fall into crisis.

The GOLDSTAR AIRLINES CEO also took a swipe at the technical staff of the Ghana Civil Aviation Authority whom he accused of not doing their work well leading to the downgrade of Ghana from category 1 to category 2, noting that such actions tend to affect the nation thereby making its routes unattractive on the global stage.

According to him, the technical staff at the Ghana Civil Aviation Authority must work at promoting local and indigenous airlines rather than work against them, adding that for starters, all the foreign airlines must be taken off the West Coast routes and that such foreign airlines should be prevented from picking passengers from Accra to the West Coast Route.

He quoted a senior staff of the technical division at the Ghana Civil Aviation Authority who has come out to indicate that local airlines are not being issued with charter licenses to operate as a result of failure to put in place the Cape Town Convention in 2006 and wondered why even 9 to 10 years down the line the status quo has remained.