Toncontin (the Tegucigalpa airport) has been ordered by the President to be opened. After much pushing and urging from everyone (even Boeing sent a letter to him stating that the 737s are certified to land at 1,500 Meters and the current runway is 1,650 meters), he has ordered it open until... We are now waiting to see if that until happens. According to the papers, the airport has 120 days to make some small changed like removing a fence that is at the beginning of the runway and installing it further away (they have already started doing this job) and changing some lights and things.
There should not be any problem getting this done, but this President has great desire to close this airport and move it to Comayaguela (where our military base is). He is getting a lot of pressure from Nicaragua and Venezuela to open this base up to commercial traffic which would in turn put pressure on the US to leave. The agreement to open the airport in Teguc is only until Palmerola can be made ready for commercial traffic. This means making a new 4 lane road from Teguc to Comayaguela. This would be wonderful to have, but not at the cost of the airport here.
We are not to concerned though as we know how Honduras works. It could take years to fix the road. While they estimate 6 months we know better. We are hoping that by the time this gets fixed a new president will be in office and will not close the airport.
Tomorrow the first commercial planes should land here in Teguc again. Yeah!!! We are so happy.
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