Since its first flight on Jan. 1, 2023 – six weeks ahead of schedule, OMNI Helicopters Guyana Incorporated (OHGI) has built a resilient team with 60 Guyanese in its employ.
Hitting the one-year existence mark, OHGI boasted of conducting 2,300 flights with a 94% on-time departure record and safely transporting over 50,000 passengers for ExxonMobil Guyana’s operations offshore.
Local operator Roraima Airways, and OMNI Helicopters International, are the two stakeholders in the company. Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Jeremy Akel shared that on conceptualizing the venture, OMNI aimed to provide a platform to accelerate aviation development in Guyana, with an operation that was “purely Guyanese.” And this is what they continue to achieve, he said, during a simple celebration ceremony on Jan. 24.
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“The OMNI way asked us to commit to continue to innovate, to improve safety, efficiency and accelerate the Guyanese knowledge and presence in aviation. We will continue this way. We will not quit,” Akel told the gathering. “We take our role and service here very seriously. We set out to build a world-class aviation operation because that is what we promised…I believe we are well on the way to building this world-class aviation operation – something we can all be proud of – but there is more to go. We are not done.”
OMNI places heavy emphasis on training opportunities, according to Director, Gerry Gouveia Jr. He shared that over the past year, the company has been “dedicated” to offering internships to students attending the Art Williams & Harry Wendt Aeronautical Engineering School housed at Ogle.
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“We are dedicated to working with all of these students to promote their on-the-job training, offering employment opportunities in the near future. We are dedicated to working with Guyanese to offer opportunities in operations, dispatch, aviation security and [more] recently in search and rescue,” he shared.
Drawing from his own love of flying, Gouveia Jr. said that OMNI is not only here to operate in Guyana but to “invest.”
“Our focus is not just flying the helicopters but lifting our Guyanese professionals,” he added. “We are dedicated to work with the people to ensure that Guyana becomes a center of excellence for the region.”
OMNI was used as proof of the success to be garnered from partnerships, according to Private Sector Commission (PSC) head, Komal Singh.
“This is what you can achieve when you create a partnership. You allow your people who are the foundation of development…to get the skillsets needed to meet the growing demand of Guyana’s [oil] industry,” Singh shared.
For OMNI’s service to Exxon over the year, it received the Supplier of the Year award.
