The Unit­ed States has ex­tend­ed the flight ban to Port-au-Prince, Haiti, un­til Sep­tem­ber 8 due to wors­en­ing se­cu­ri­ty con­di­tions and es­ca­lat­ing gang vi­o­lence. 

The Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Ad­min­is­tra­tion (FAA) made the de­ci­sion af­ter as­sess­ing on­go­ing threats to civ­il avi­a­tion.

Ini­tial­ly im­posed in No­vem­ber 2024, the re­stric­tion fol­lowed in­ci­dents where three com­mer­cial air­craft were struck by gun­fire while land­ing at Tou­s­saint Lou­ver­ture In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port. 

Al­though flights re­sumed at six oth­er Hait­ian air­ports, de­te­ri­o­rat­ing con­di­tions in the cap­i­tal have led to a pro­longed sus­pen­sion. 

The re­stric­tions were set to ex­pire on Wednes­day, but of­fi­cials de­cid­ed the risks were still too high.

Since the ini­tial FAA ban, ma­jor air­lines, in­clud­ing Amer­i­can Air­lines, Spir­it Air­lines, and Jet­Blue, have sus­pend­ed flights to Haiti in­def­i­nite­ly, cit­ing se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns. In a March 6 state­ment, Jet­Blue con­firmed that flights to Port-au-Prince would re­main halt­ed un­til at least June 11, 2025.

“Our top pri­or­i­ty re­mains the safe­ty and well-be­ing of our cus­tomers and crew mem­bers,” a Jet­Blue spokesper­son told The Mi­a­mi Her­ald. “Due to the on­go­ing civ­il un­rest in Haiti, we have made the de­ci­sion to sus­pend all flights to and from the coun­try through at least June 11, 2025.”

With Port-au-Prince’s main air­port ef­fec­tive­ly closed to com­mer­cial flights, Haiti’s gov­ern­ment has shift­ed fo­cus to re­gion­al air­ports to main­tain in­ter­na­tion­al trav­el ac­cess. The Cap-Haï­tien In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port re­mains the on­ly op­tion for di­rect com­mer­cial flights be­tween Haiti and the Unit­ed States, op­er­at­ed by Sun­rise Air­ways and oth­er small car­ri­ers.

In ear­ly March, Hait­ian au­thor­i­ties an­nounced that the An­toine Si­mon Air­port in Les Cayes had com­plet­ed a run­way ex­ten­sion, al­low­ing it to re­ceive in­ter­na­tion­al flights. A sim­i­lar ex­pan­sion at Jacmel’s air­port was fi­nal­ized in Jan­u­ary 2025.

U.S. and Hait­ian of­fi­cials have dis­cussed pos­si­ble steps to re­store com­mer­cial air trav­el safe­ly, but no con­crete time­line has been es­tab­lished. Ear­li­er this month, U.S. Am­bas­sador to Haiti Den­nis Han­k­ins met with Haiti’s Na­tion­al Of­fice of Civ­il Avi­a­tion Di­rec­tor, Régi­nald Guig­nard, to dis­cuss se­cur­ing the perime­ter of Tou­s­saint Lou­ver­ture In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port.

While the air­port re­mains closed to com­mer­cial traf­fic, it still re­ceives mil­i­tary and diplo­mat­ic flights, in­clud­ing those re­lat­ed to the Kenya-led multi­na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty mis­sion, that is help­ing Haiti in the fight against gang vi­o­lence.

WASH­ING­TON, Mar. 13, CMC -

CMC/cn/kbb/2025