In the early hours of Wednesday, the president of Haiti, Jovenel Moise, was murdered after an armed attack on his residence.
This unleashed a political and social upheaval in the Caribbean country that had an impact on flight operations.
At the time of this publication (14:00 UTC), of the 19 flights that were scheduled to arrive at the Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Port-au-Prince, 10 had already been canceled.
Among them are three from American Airlines (one from Fort Lauderdale and two from Miami), six from JetBlue (three from New York, one from Boston, one from Fort Lauderdale and one from Boston) and a Spirit Airlines´ flight from Fort Lauderdale.
To this must be added the seven scheduled departures of the local airline Sunrise Airways to Les Cayes, Jeremie, Santo Domingo and Cap. Haitien, which for now appear in the systems on time, although the company stated that «due to the current situation in Haiti, all flights are canceled or delayed until further notice in order to protect staff, passengers and the team.»
Update 14:30 UTC: Toussaint Louverture Airport has been completely closed by the Haitian authorities, so no flights will operate this Wednesday, July 7.
The situation in Haiti has also had an impact on the Dominican Republic, a country with which it shares the island of Hispaniola. The four land border crossings have been closed, but security at ports and airports has also been strengthened. The newspaper El Día de Santo Domingo even reports, citing official sources, that a highly confidential document indicates that any Colombian citizen who tries to leave the Dominican Republic should be detained and investigated, given that the hitmen spoke Spanish.
Flights in Port au Prince
Currently, the Toussaint Louverture Airport registers 224 weekly flights between arrivals and departures.
American Airlines operates seven weekly flights from Fort Lauderdale and thirteen from Miami. Jetblue has five weekly flights from Boston, two from New York / Newark, 14 from Fort Lauderdale and 14 from New York / JFK. Spirit for its part has seven weekly flights from Miami.
Sunrise Airways operates 10 weekly flights to Cap. Haitien, 21 towards Les Cayes, 11 towards Santo Domingo and 4 towards Jeremie.
Intercaribbean Airways operates three weekly flights from Providenciales and Interward one weekly flight from St. Maarten.
