La Gonave needs better access to the mainland

Getting to and from La Gonave is a bit of a challenge. Typically you can fly into the island from Port-au-Prince using a charter flight, or you would have to take a ferry. Due to really expensive fares, most locals use the various sailboats and a ferry that go to and from the island. These water vessels are barely sea worthy, and some have even sunk. Most of the people who fly to the island are foreigners who are with or part of the not-for-profit groups on the island. Rarely if ever do Haitians fly even from the the Port-au-Prince airport, let alone La Gonave. The island of La Gonave has a 2,400 foot dirt runway that easily gets muddy when it rains, and often has livestock that is roaming the airstrip. This simply can not continue to happen. The La Gonave airport is only a 20 - 25 min flight from Port-au-Prince airport. Given the short distance, and large population on the island an air service could be supported. If you look at the numbers of people who daily go to and from the island to the mainland, if you just got 1% of that traffic to fly directly into Port-au-Prince vs landing in Carries, then locals would save time and money. Now attracting a small airline is nearly impossible. The island residents are too poor, not enough tourist if any go to La Gonave to have constant service, and such a service would need government financial support. None of that looks likely at the present time, but should be something that is worked on. Even in some African countries airlines charged $15 per flight for passengers who went from one city to the next. Sometimes that other city is in another country even. Those airplanes were much larger and went farther distances. The existing charter airlines charge over $100 per person if the planes are not full, and even if they are full, most Haitians can't afford to pay the minimum $55. Simply put the island government needs to look into a solution of getting people to and from the island at an affordable rate. So how would this work and what would it look like? Well first let me state more on why an air service is needed. One it allows for more cargo to directly get onto the island and allow for goods to be shipped to Port-au-Prince in a fast and safe manner. Currently items have to be sent via sailboats which are very dangerous taking sometimes several hours. So from a safety stand of people and cargo, air travel makes perfect sense. Also the difference of over an hour to 2 hours sailing time, then you have to get a ride down to Port-au-Prince adds to the time. This can be a 1 hour or more journey from Carries to Port-au-Prince. So a 3 hour trip to get to Port-au-Prince, then you would have to stay with someone or rent a hotel room. The reason is due to the ferry not going back out until the next morning. So not only does it take a long time, on a dangerous ferry or boat, but it is extremely inconvenient. This drastically affects the economy on La Gonave as businesses need flight access to Port-au-Prince on a regular basis, but also it affects having a tourist base as most will be reluctant on taking a ferry or sailboats to the island. The way this can work is by getting the Haitian government to finance the cost of a small airplane. This can be a plane of about 8-10 seats. So think of Britten-Norman Islander or a Cessna Caravan. These small planes are designed to take off from small runways like what is on La Gonave, and they can easily fly to Port-au-Prince directly in 25 mins. Secondly there needs to be a plan created to train a couple local pilots or hire pilots that will fly the plane to and from the island on a scheduled air service. Even having 2 flights daily to Port-au-Prince would make a major difference. The flights need to be very low to encourage local islanders to fly out of the airport. The cost of what it would be for some of the boat rides could be enough to make the service worth it. Now understand that the service would have to be subsidized in order to work, or a large amount of daily flights would have to be offered, but having an air service could be a boon to La Gonave. Also it would create jobs that currently don't exist on the island. Having a air service would need many jobs that would then support that industry. Such a service would be able to operate for very little money overall, and would be something that would start a rebirth of the island economy. What are your thoughts? Go Gonave!