Latest update April 23rd, 2024 12:59 AM
Jun 18, 2017 News
By Sharmain Grainger
With promises of new routes and hints of possibly two additional aircraft by next year, Fly
Jamaica Airways is currently on an expansion course. But according to the company’s Director of Human Resource and Support Services, Mrs. Roxanne Reece, Fly Jamaica is nevertheless proceeding with caution. This, she noted, is in light of the constantly changing global economic climate.
According to Reece, during a recent interview, “we are measuring our growth very carefully, because the whole world is at a crossroads right now; nobody is sure what’s going to happen next in this world and in our Region we are very vulnerable to changes that we don’t control.”
Moreover, Reece pointed out that among the potential challenges that the company is constantly faced with, is that of a downward spiral of the world economy.
“Obviously if the world economy suffers, all of our communities are going to have less money to travel and travel is often a luxury… after your food and your rent, your school fees and whatever else that is when you go to travel.”
Against this background, Reece noted that Fly Jamaica operates wary of the fact that “it will suffer if the world sees an economic downturn and we have to be careful, because we see what’s happening in Europe, what’s happening with the United Kingdom and the United States and we have a saying in the Caribbean ‘when they sneeze we catch pneumonia’.”
Essentially, the Fly Jamaica Managing Director explained, if fuel prices for instance soar, it will undoubtedly adversely affect the operation of the airline.
“There are just so many little things and we just have to be so very, very careful,” Reece asserted.
But the ever-present challenges have not hampered plans designed to have the airline evolve. There are currently plans apace to increase the carrier’s routes, according to Reece.
Currently Fly Jamaica caters to four destinations: Guyana, Jamaica, Toronto and New York. All four destinations are outfitted with two ticketing offices. The most recent ticketing office opened to the public is one in Brooklyn, New York.
The latest ticketing office, located at 1397 Nostrand Avenue, was opened on Thursday June 15, 2017. This move, according to Reece, was intended to help Fly Jamaica customers have easier physical access to its operation. She noted that although there is an office in Queens, it has been recognised that many travelling persons who have roots within the Diaspora are also located in Brooklyn.
Like the Queens office, the Brooklyn office is also dedicated to ticketing sales. However, customers can also purchase their tickets online and at Fly Jamaica’s JFK office.
But there are even bigger expansion plans that are on the horizon for Fly Jamaica. According to Reece, the airline is looking to add a new aircraft before the end of this year. She also mentioned the possibility of adding yet another aircraft sometime next year, thus bringing the airline’s fleet to a total of four.
But according to Reece, “our original plan was to have eight, because when we worked out our study in our Region with our number of people, the maximum before you come down when you’re on the bell curve, after eight it was a decline of investment. So we originally thought that over a 10-year period, we would try to get eight (aircraft) on board.”
She continued, “We realised that it wouldn’t be feasible to grow beyond that, unless our population grew beyond that, and we didn’t see it, because our population steadily moved away from our countries. So I think unless we arrest that, we have to follow the original plan…unless our governments try to arrest the migration of our people, we have to stay within the plan.”
Fly Jamaica which is headquartered in Jamaica, was registered there on September, 2011. However, it wasn’t until close to a year and a half later that the airline was able to secure an Aircraft Operation Certificate [AOC].
“You don’t just get an airline; it is a very challenging process. There are about five different levels that you have to go through, from the pre-application process right to the end, which is your AOC. Everything just seemed to fall into place for us…it was like a miracle,” said Reece, as she considered that in Jamaica, Fly Jamaica is the only existing international airline.
The AOC number given to Fly Jamaica is A27 which suggests that 26 others had attempted a similar feat but failed. “Most people when they see the first stage, when they see how challenging it is, when they see how expensive it is…they just change their minds,” related Reece.
But according to her, Fly Jamaica might have had a priceless advantage. This advantage, according to Reece, was the principles embraced by the airline’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, her husband Captain Paul Reece.
“He always says nothing is a problem and failure is not an option…that is what kept us throughout the process when we stumbled. He kept us going and he is really the driving force behind Fly Jamaica. He kept his team together and brought Fly Jamaica to where it is today,” Mrs. Reece explained.
Speaking at the recent opening of the Brooklyn office, Captain Reece, revealed that Fly Jamaica will also be working to meet the entertainment needs of its customers.
“This is a very important step in the expansion of Fly Jamaica, because we really need to expand our horizon in terms of providing good service to the traveling public. There are a lot of events in Jamaica and a lot in Guyana, and what we are hoping to do, through our marketing team which is led by my daughter Kayla Reece, is that we would like to highlight those events on our website,” Captain Reece revealed.
With many plans to improve operations, Fly Jamaica is poise for many more years of success if the Reeces are allowed to have their way.
The power couple sitting at the helm of the airline, certainly know what they are about, since together they have years of aviation experience, which they racked up in Guyana.
The couple is convinced that with the support of their hard-working team, Fly Jamaica will continue to move from strength to strength, all the while ensuring that its ultimate goal – satisfying the needs of its customers – is adequately met.
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