Overview:
Port-de-Paix’s airstrip stays unsafe eight months after rehabilitation work started, forcing humanitarian plane to land on an unpaved runway crowded with folks, livestock and automobiles. Residents push for pressing upgrades because the northwest awaits long-delayed investments in air journey infrastructure.
PORT-DE-PAIX— Eight months after work started to rehabilitate the dormant Port-de-Paix airstrip, the undertaking has stalled, leaving pilots and passengers to navigate more and more harmful touchdown circumstances.
With no functioning airport within the Northwest Division—and with the long-promised Port-à-l’Eu Worldwide Airport nonetheless unfinished greater than a decade after development started—residents say air journey has turn into each a necessity and a big gamble.
The runway, formally out of service since 2021, is little greater than a 1,500-meter dust strip that doubles as a public passageway. Bikes, vehicles, livestock, distributors and pedestrians frequently cross it. When a small humanitarian plane lands, safety brokers rush to every nook holding sticks and megaphones to push folks and animals apart.
“It takes us about ten minutes to safe every space of the runway earlier than an plane arrives,” Fransly Déremé, runway safety officer, informed The Haitian Instances.
The result’s a precarious system that, in accordance with residents and officers, endangers lives on daily basis.
Regardless of security dangers, pilots working humanitarian flights proceed to make use of the dust strip out of necessity.
A Haitian Times video from Nov. 15 exhibits a small plane touchdown whereas distributors, kids, bikes and livestock roam the runway.
The Northwest is certainly one of Haiti’s most geographically remoted areas. Street entry to Port-de-Paix—whether or not from Port-au-Prince, Gonaïves, Cap-Haïtien or different coastal communes—is lengthy, rugged and more and more unsafe on account of gang exercise on main nationwide routes.
Not like Les Cayes, Jérémie and Cap-Haïtien, the Northwest has no paved airport or dependable business service. Flights that do function are principally humanitarian, utilizing small plane able to quick, tough landings.
Departmental Delegate Rock Excéus mentioned the shortage of air entry has price lives.
“A number of critically unwell sufferers have died as a result of they might not be evacuated to Cap-Haïtien or Port-au-Prince for emergency remedy in time,” Excéus mentioned.
Native authorities launched cleanup and leveling efforts in March 2025, clearing years of trash from the runway. A number of check landings came about in April, however since then, progress has halted.
Two airplanes landed on the runway to check its high quality final week whereas underneath renovation
Officers say the town has 28 million gourdes—about $214,000—sitting in a municipal account that could possibly be used to complete the work. The funds had been initially allotted for post-flood cleanup in 2024, however the metropolis is looking for authorization to reallocate them.
“It’s important that this native airport be made obtainable to the neighborhood for humanitarian flights in occasions of disaster,” Cédieu Vacneur, mayor of Port-de-Paix, mentioned.
For a number of residents, the shortage of transparency has fueled mistrust.
“Native authorities by no means offered a plan or timeline. This undertaking was stillborn,” mentioned 53-year-old resident Josué Métayer, a truck driver.
Others argue that any momentary repair is insufficient for a area that has waited years for correct infrastructure.
A decade of delays at Port-à-l’Eu
Fueling frustration is the reminiscence of Port-à-l’Eu airport, a flagship undertaking launched underneath former President Michel Martelly in 2013. The airport was envisioned as a contemporary gateway for home and worldwide flights that will finish the Northwest’s isolation.
Greater than 10 years later:
- The terminal and runway stay unfinished
- Building stalled a number of occasions over political crises and lack of funding
- No up to date timeline or finances allocation has been made public
Regional chamber and civil society group lead worldwide airport development
The extended delay has pressured the neighborhood to depend on the deteriorated Port-de-Paix airstrip as the one air entry level for the area. However many say it must be shut down solely because of the hazard it poses in a densely populated space—particularly since growth is unlikely given restricted authorities sources.
Native officers say ending the Port-de-Paix runway is now pressing—whilst a stopgap resolution.
The late President Jovenel Moïse as soon as described touchdown in Port-de-Paix as “an unreported accident ready to occur” and ordered its closure. He had as an alternative prioritized the Port-à-l’Eu undertaking, situated about 19 miles west of Port-de-Paix. Residents say little has improved since.
Excéus informed The Haitian Instances he has made repeated requests to Haiti’s aviation authorities with out outcomes.
For now, the airstrip operates in a grey zone: neither formally open nor closed, depending on makeshift safety and luck.
Residents say the Northwest can’t wait any longer.