PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) – American Airlines yesterday flew the first commercial passenger flight into Haiti since the Jan. 12 earthquake, reopening major commercial airline links with the quake-hit Caribbean country.
Flight AA 377 from Miami, a Boeing 737 carrying 136 passengers, touched down at Toussaint L’Ouverture airport in Port-au-Prince and taxied up to the terminal, which was damaged in the quake but has been operating with the help of US military engineers and air force controllers.
The pilots waved a red and blue Haitian flag from the cockpit window to celebrate the arrival of the first major commercial passenger flight to Haiti since it was struck by the magnitude 7 quake last month.
More than 212,000 people were killed in the disaster which destroyed hundreds of buildings in the capital.
On the day of the quake, and despite damage at the airport, American Airlines, a unit of AMR Corp, had flown the last commercial passenger flight out of the shattered city on the evening of Jan. 12.
“We were the last one out and the first one back,” Martha Pantin, American Airlines corporate communications director for the Caribbean and Latin America, told reporters.
She said that since a day after the quake, American and its subsidiary American Eagle had flown 30 relief flights into Haiti, carrying aid and medical and humanitarian personnel.
Immediately after the earthquake, the US military assumed air traffic control responsibilities to bring in hundreds of relief and aid flights from some 35 countries around the world. But the US controllers were now gradually handing back responsibilities to their Haitian counterparts.
Air France was to send its first passenger flight to Haiti since the quake later yesterday and three more American Airlines flights were also due to arrive from Miami, Fort Lauderdale and New York.
US Brigadier General Darryl Burke, vice commander of Air Forces Southern, said the resumption of commercial air traffic to Haiti was another sign of transport links starting to return to normal more than five weeks after the earthquake.
“This brings business and commerce back to the nation of Haiti,” he said.
From a peak of 120 flights a day in the days following the quake when aid supplies and personnel were pouring in, the airport was now handling over 40 flights a day and was expected to maintain a level of between 30 and 40 flights daily.
This was above the level of 15 flights a day before the quake.
US embassy officials said the resumption of normal commercial air traffic between the United States and Haiti meant that civilian evacuations from Haiti by US military flights would be phased out, except for emergency cases.
Outside the airport terminal, an excited crowd gathered to greet friends and relatives on the flight from Miami.
“I’m happy to be back in my country to help my people who have suffered so much,” said Dr Joseph Volvick, a Haitian who is a visiting professor at the University of Miami.
