Posted by By Jerry George
Captain Pratt Donnie executed a perfect touch down of his Boeing 737 on February 7 when he piloted the first ever wide body aircraft onto the runway at the Canouan airport at 4:13 on a bright sunny Saturday afternoon, twenty minutes ahead of schedule after departing Dallas Texas earlier that day.
‘It was a piece of cake,’ Capt. Donnie said as he shared his experience of landing the first ever Boeing 737 jet on the tiny grenadine island, ‘I had more than 1,500 feet of runway left when we turned around and I didn’t have to sit on the brake.’
The Captain said he had lots of experience of landing Boeing 727’s on gravel strips particularly in Alaska. ‘My only caution would be when the runway is wet,’ Donnie said, ‘because with water on the strip there could possibly be some hydro-foiling and then I don’t know how it will perform,’ he said.
On board the flight were fifty-five passengers and ten crew members. The passengers are an incentive group of high achievers in their company who have been awarded the trip to the exclusive Raffles Resort on Canouan and will remain there for four days savouring the service of the Raffles brand.
Ms. Mandy Balich who is the representative for Private Jet Services said their operations make the arrangements for the clients wherever they want to go and in this case this client had chosen Canouan.
The group wanted to travel all together,’ she said, ‘and that’s why this aircraft was chosen.’
‘Before we could confirm the trip we had to ensure that there was sufficient space for the craft to operate safely, but after we did our checks we proceeded to bring the group here and the landing was perfect,’ Balich said.
Canouan Aviation services (CAS) is the agent for both Ameristar Jet Charters and Private Jet Services. Ms. Raina Sassine, Operations Manager for Canouan Aviation Services said, “CAS is a locally owned, that is Canouan owned company which offers organization and handling of Charters for VIP clients, supplying fuel to aircrafts using the Canouan airport and full fixed base operations to all operators using the facility.’
First Boeing 737 being guided onto tarmac
When asked about being able to attract a group of this size and type at this time when there is a global economic down-turn, Sassine said, ‘Canouan is an exclusive island Resort and very attractive to the luxury end of the market.
We have several groups who have contacted us about coming to Canouan during this year,’ she continued, ‘and right now we haven’t seen any slackening in the demand for the market we are targeting.’
