Port-de-Paix airstrip needs $214K to fix risky landings as rehab stalls

PORT-DE-PAIX— Eight months after work began to rehabilitate the dormant Port-de-Paix airstrip, the project has stalled, leaving pilots and passengers to navigate increasingly dangerous landing conditions.

With no functioning airport in the Northwest Department—and with the long-promised Port-à-l’Ecu International Airport still unfinished more than a decade after construction began—residents say air travel has become both a necessity and a gamble.

The runway, officially out of service since 2021, is little more than a 1,500-meter dirt strip that doubles as a public passageway. Motorcycles, cars, livestock, vendors and pedestrians regularly cross it. When a small humanitarian aircraft lands, security agents rush to each corner holding sticks and megaphones to push people and animals aside.

“It takes us about ten minutes to secure each area of the runway before an aircraft arrives,” Fransly Déremé, runway security officer, told The Haitian Times.

The result is a precarious system that, according to residents and officials, endangers lives every day.

Despite safety risks, pilots operating humanitarian flights continue to use the dirt strip out of necessity.

A Haitian Times video from Nov. 15 shows a small aircraft landing while vendors, children, motorcycles and livestock roam the runway.

The Northwest is one of Haiti’s most geographically isolated regions. Road access to Port-de-Paix—whether from Port-au-Prince, Gonaïves, Cap-Haïtien or other coastal communes—is long, rugged and increasingly unsafe due to gang activity on major national routes.

Unlike Les Cayes, Jérémie and Cap-Haïtien, the Northwest has no paved airport or reliable commercial service. Flights that do operate are mostly humanitarian, using small aircraft capable of short, rough landings.

Departmental Delegate Rock Excéus said the lack of air access has cost lives.

“Several critically ill patients have died because they could not be evacuated to Cap-Haïtien or Port-au-Prince for emergency treatment in time,” Excéus said.

Local authorities launched cleanup and leveling efforts in March 2025, clearing years of trash from the runway. Several test landings took place in April, but since then, progress has halted.

Officials say the city has 28 million gourdes—about $214,000—sitting in a municipal account that could be used to finish the work. The funds were originally allocated for post-flood cleanup in 2024, but the city is seeking authorization to reallocate them.

“It is essential that this local airport be made available to the community for humanitarian flights in times of crisis,” Cédieu Vacneur, mayor of Port-de-Paix, said.

For several residents, the lack of transparency has fueled distrust.

“Local authorities never presented a plan or timeline. This project was stillborn,” said 53-year-old resident Josué Métayer, a truck driver.

Others argue that any temporary fix is inadequate for a region that has waited years for proper infrastructure.

A decade of delays at Port-à-l’Ecu

Fueling frustration is the memory of Port-à-l’Ecu airport, a flagship project launched under former President Michel Martelly in 2013. The airport was envisioned as a modern gateway for domestic and international flights that would end the Northwest’s isolation.

More than 10 years later:

• The terminal and runway remain unfinished
• Construction stalled multiple times over political crises and lack of funding
• No updated timeline or budget allocation has been made public

The prolonged delay has forced the community to rely on the deteriorated Port-de-Paix airstrip as the only air access point for the region. But many say it should be shut down entirely due to the danger it poses in a densely populated area—especially since expansion is unlikely given limited government resources.

Local officials say finishing the Port-de-Paix runway is now urgent—even as a stopgap solution.

The late President Jovenel Moïse once described landing in Port-de-Paix as “an unreported accident waiting to happen” and ordered its closure. He had instead prioritized the Port-à-l’Ecu project, located about 19 miles west of Port-de-Paix. Residents say little has improved since.

Excéus told The Haitian Times he has made repeated requests to Haiti’s aviation authorities without results.

For now, the airstrip operates in a gray zone: neither officially open nor closed, dependent on makeshift security and luck.

Residents say the Northwest can’t wait any longer.

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