CAP-HAITIEN, Haiti (HCNN) — A boeing 757 aircraft landed on Thursday at the newly built international airport in Haiti’s northern provincial town of Cap-Haitien, as American Airlines operates its inaugural international flight in a Haitian airport other than the one in the Caribbean country’s capital Port-au-Prince.
Haitian President Michel Martelly, Prime minister Laurent Lamothe, Tourism minister Stephanie Villedrouin, the minister of Public Works, and several other members of the government as well as high-ranking representatives of American Airlines were attended the event at the new international airport renamed after late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez.
President Martelly, who wore a T-shirt with the notice “Cap-Haitien is open for business”, left Port-au-Prince on Wednesday evening to board, in Miami, Florida, the first international commercial flight to Haiti’s second largest city of Cap-Haitien.
“This is not just a flight, this is the beginning of a series of activities that will bring economic opportunities, investments, jobs and development to the whole greater Northern region,” Martelly told the Haitian-Caribbean News Network (HCNN) on Thursday.
“We are proud to be able to achieve this after several unsuccessful attempts by previous government, since 1952,” said Martelly who thanked the Venezuelan government which provided most of the funds for the project.
The Cap-Haitien airport had been operated for decades as a local paved airfield serving several areas in the northern region.
American Airlines senior Vice-president, Art Torno, said his company always had its sight on the Cap-Haitien destination for a long time and expressed satisfaction with the concretization of such a dream.
