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GIG (Rio de Janeiro) is a pretty nice airport other than the fact upon arrival via U.S. carriers (American) you sure have to walk a long distance before you finally reach Immigration.
With Brazil you have to wonder if they do that on purpose, like requiring a tourist visa to Americans. Lol
Related to airports since airlines can only operate in these places, a not very well known airline outside of Haiti is Sunrise Airways. I think this is the only passenger airline based in Port-au-Prince, Haiti (correct me if I’m wrong on this respect) and for now consist of small airplanes.
Will it evolve to have larger airplanes to serve the Haitian diaspora and their demand to fly to Haiti? Right now Haitians have to depend of foreign airlines, mostly from the United States, to fly to Haiti. What if a Haitian airline offering comforts and good quality offers that service? Plus, most or all the flight attendants will be Haitians offering Haitian hospitality. I would also think a Haitian airlines would offer some support for Haitian industry by offering certain Haitian products in its flights (such as Banbarcourt rum or Prestige beer.) Maybe in the future this can also become the main airline transporting foreign tourists to Haiti, further supporting the growth of the industry.
I guess for now these are all their destinations. PAP = Port-au-Prince and CAP = Cap Haitien. I’m only putting here the one in English, but in the link you can see they have it in 4 different languages.
It appears Sunrise Airways (recently?) adquired a bigger airplane. This is exciting! I think this is the Haitian airline with the best prospects. There should be no reason why Surise Airways isn’t one of the big players serving Haitian airport(s) such as American, Jetblue, etc.
CcBeautiful landing at Cap Haitian, Haiti. They should declare maybe by expropiation the green area around the airport going towards many meters, perhaps kilometers, outward in all direction land owned by the Haitian government (with compensation to the current owners, but with no choice but to sell to the Haitian government.) Then declare this area as a new official national forest or whatever they call it. Then develop a reforestation plan with cooperation from the private sector and maybe NGO’s and through the years have that area become a new forest that is protected. That would ensure that if Cap Haitian continues to expand, it will not be close to the airport.
In addition to the nature benefit and reforesting Haiti, it will continue to be a beautiful view to see from airplanes landing there. This could be important if in the future near the Cap Haitian coast a touristic area by a beach with many resorts, shopping centers, a golf course or two, etc (similar to Labadee but instead of sea cruises it would be like a cruiseship on land) is developed to further encourage the growth of international tourism based on sea and sun. Personally, I think that area of Haiti is more beautiful than the area around Port-au-Prince. That way this airport can be used for that too and only the beautification and modernization, maybe expansion too, of its terminal is necessary instead of creating a new airport from scratch.
The only thing bothering me a bit from this video is that the airline is Spirit (from the USA) instead of Sunrise (from Haiti.) While OK, we all know where the profits are going and from where are most of the people working for Spirit (and hence the ones getting paid for this work,) especially on this flight.
The other thing I don’t like, and this seem trivial but the hidden message is obvious, is that once in Haiti the message via the intercomb was first in English and then in Haitian Creole. It should had been first in Haitian Creole and then in English even if once back in the USA English is first. The same with the signage in the airport. If it will be biligual, Haitian Creole on top and English on the bottom.
Mexicana: Now you see it, now you don’t, now you see it again!
I like seeing airlines that have a meaning in their names return to the skies. Mexicana was Mexico’s first airline. It can’t disappear!
One of the nice things of governments of big countries is that even if the country isn’t fully developed, the government has a lot of money. The Mexican government stepped in and brought back Mexicana. Before it was a private company that went bankrupt due mostly to mismanagement.
I think for now Mexicana only fly within Mexico. Will it fly international too?
Mexicana: Now you see it, now you don’t, now you see it again!
I like seeing airlines that have a meaning in their names return to the skies. Mexicana was Mexico’s first airline. It can’t disappear!
One of the nice things of governments of big countries is that even if the country isn’t fully developed, the government has a lot of money. The Mexican government stepped in and brought back Mexicana. Before it was a private company that went bankrupt due mostly to mismanagement.
I think for now Mexicana only fly within Mexico. Will it fly international too?
Apparently, recently Mexicana made an order for 20 more airplanes. They have big plans!
We'll see. No shortage of international flights from places international tourists want to go. Maybe when the rail link is finally operating they can try flights from AIFA to the US. This airline was started for purely political reasons to make AIFA look like a viable airport. That and to cover up the taint from the failures of the original Mexicana, which AMLO has a real affinity for, and Interjet which was a big political mess too.
I'm just wondering is there really a place in the aviation industry for a real government owned flag carrier when there is already a robust competitive market?
The thing about Interjet is that it didn’t had the history of Mexicana. The latter one is a symbol of Mexico in the sky while the other on was just a modern Mexican airline that went belly up.
If a book exist on the history of flying in Mexico (actually, I would be interested in getting it along with similar books on the history of flying of countries like Cuba -yes, Cubana de Aviación is the reason for that-, Colombia -Avianca-, Brazil -I’m especially interested on Gol and Azul-, Argentina -AerolÃnea Argentina-, even Spain -Iberia- and a few others.) In fact, a museum treating the aviation history of Latin America and replicas of from certain airplanes from different era with the liveries of various main airlines from Latin America is quite a good idea.
There are times when the government needs to take the bulls by the horns to get a certain sector or place to get going. There are examples of this all over the world (for example, if it wasn’t for the initiative of their respective governments, neither South Korea nor Singapore would be among the richest and most developed countries in the world.) The government can also create a mess and in many other times it’s better to focus more on the private sector than the government.
Whatever works is my motto. If in some it’s the private sector and in the other the government, then so be it. It’s clear the private sector kept Mexicana in the air and it was the private sector that made her go bankrupt. Will Mexicana be better under the guidance of the Mexican government? Will see. I’m not automatically opposed to it simply because this time around Mexicana is a government company. As I said before, whatever works is good in my book!
There is also an added benefit to having Mexicana flying again and those are the many jobs it will create to further benefit Mexican (and young Mexicans that want to be) pilots, flight attendants, etc. I doubt the pilots/flight attendants currently working for Mexicana have another job. I would guess they were out of a job or had another job with worse pay/benefit that once Mexicana was back in the air they quickly applied for positions there. Even in the video the guy says there was an evident pride in everyone he met that works for Mexicana. Such pride doesn’t appear just because, they are hqppy to be working for that airline. Imagine the many more similar jobs Mexicana will create with the new airplanes and routes. All of them live around Mexico City and vicinity, so their ability to have a job in Mexicana will benefit the Mexico City Metro economy as that’s where they will buy most of the services, foods, etc of theirs and their families daily living.
Some extra info on Mexicana de Aviación (though the video is in Spanish.)
The detail that most shocked me was that this oldest airline of Mexico was owned by the Mexican government, then sold to a private company and within 5 years they run it to the ground! Thousands of Mexicans found themselves unemployed.** Unbelievable!
Most of the time I support markets more than governments, but sometimes the market is crazy and this was one of them! Losing a job is never good, but in a developing country is worse! If you think most people are able to find another formal job with the pay levels they were used to and the benefits in a short amount of time, think again. For many people it’s months and maybe even years before they are employed again in a formal business!
Organization: 2 coordinances = 1 technical and 1 operative. Director: General of the Mexican Air Force with ample experience with managing aerial operations. Employments at the moment it started operations: 209 direct jobs and 745 people.
Started with 10 Boeing 737-800: 3 received in September 2023 and 7 in October 2023.*
All their current destinations are in Mexico starting from AIFA airport in Mexico City.
* As stated in a previous post, right now there is an order for 20 more.
** Around 8,500 people! Most of them probably have families that depended in part or in full of what they earned in Mexicana de Aviación. 7,407 of them were paid by the Mexican government what was owed to them that the parent company of Mexicana never paid them. Unbelievable!
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