SALSA d'Haïti was a Haitian

regional airline A regional airline is a general classification of airline which typically operates scheduled passenger air service, using regional aircraft, between communities lacking sufficient demand or infrastructure to attract mainline flights. In North ...

headquartered at

Toussaint Louverture International Airport Toussaint Louverture International Airport (, ) is an international airport in Tabarre, a commune of Port-au-Prince in Haiti. The airport is currently the busiest in Haiti and is an operating hub for Sunrise Airways. It is informally called "th ...

Port-au-Prince Port-au-Prince ( ; ; , ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Haiti, most populous city of Haiti. The city's population was estimated at 1,200,000 in 2022 with the metropolitan area estimated at a population of 2,618,894. The me ...

Haiti Haiti, officially the Republic of Haiti, is a country on the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and south of the Bahamas. It occupies the western three-eighths of the island, which it shares with the Dominican ...

. It flew several round trip flights daily between Cap-Haitien and

History

SALSA d'Haïti was a privately held airline formed in 2008 to provide service for travel within Haiti. SALSA d'Haïti held the IATA airline designator of SO (Sierra-Oscar), IATA accounting prefix of 340 and

International Civil Aviation Organization The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO ) is a specialized agency of the United Nations that coordinates the principles and techniques of international air navigation, and fosters the planning and development of international sch ...

(ICAO) airline designator of SLC (Sierra-Lima-Charlie). SALSA also participates in the

International Air Transport Association The International Air Transport Association (IATA ) is an airline trade association founded in 1945. IATA has been described as a cartel since, in addition to setting technical standards for airlines, IATA also organized tariff conferences tha ...

(IATA) Multilateral Prorate Agency - Passenger (MPA-P) and is a signatory of the IATA Prorate Agency Agreement (PAA). SALSA is an

acronym An acronym is a type of abbreviation consisting of a phrase whose only pronounced elements are the initial letters or initial sounds of words inside that phrase. Acronyms are often spelled with the initial Letter (alphabet), letter of each wor ...

for Services Aeriens Latinosamericains, S.A. d'Haïti (translated from French to English as "Latin American Air Services Corporation of Haiti"). While the primary focus of the airline was to serve the Haitian local population, international expansion was planned to further this goal to the large Haitian population living outside of Haiti while at the same time making foreign tourist travel to areas outside of Port-au-Prince available. SALSA had orders for additional

turboprop A turboprop is a Gas turbine, gas turbine engine that drives an aircraft Propeller (aeronautics), propeller. A turboprop consists of an intake, reduction drive, reduction gearbox, gas compressor, compressor, combustor, turbine, and a propellin ...

aircraft to expand domestic operations to

Port-de-Paix Port-de-Paix (; or ; meaning "Port of Peace") is a List of communes of Haiti, commune and the capital of the Nord-Ouest (department), Nord-Ouest Departments of Haiti, department of Haiti on the Atlantic coast. It has a population of 462,000 (201 ...

Jérémie Jérémie (; ) is a commune and capital city of the Grand'Anse department in Haiti. It had a population of about 134,317 at the 2015 census. It is relatively isolated from the rest of the country. The Grande-Anse River flows near the city. ...

and Les Cayes. Additionally, jet-powered aircraft were to be added in 2011 to serve international destinations in

Kingston Kingston may refer to: Places * List of places called Kingston, including the six most populated: ** Kingston, Jamaica ** Kingston upon Hull, England ** City of Kingston, Victoria, Australia ** Kingston, Ontario, Canada ** Kingston upon Thames, ...

Jamaica Jamaica is an island country in the Caribbean Sea and the West Indies. At , it is the third-largest island—after Cuba and Hispaniola—of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean. Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, west of Hispaniola (the is ...

and Ft. Lauderdale,

Florida Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...

. Shortly after the

2010 Haiti earthquake The 2010 Haiti earthquake was a catastrophic Moment magnitude scale, magnitude 7.0 Mw earthquake that struck Haiti at 16:53 local time (21:53 UTC) on Tuesday, 12 January 2010. The epicenter was near the town of Léogâne, Ouest (departm ...

on January 12, 2010, SALSA d'Haïti began organizing relief efforts with several

non-governmental organization A non-governmental organization (NGO) is an independent, typically nonprofit organization that operates outside government control, though it may get a significant percentage of its funding from government or corporate sources. NGOs often focus ...

s and foreign governments to assist in the transportation of supplies into Port-au-Prince and other Haitian communities outside of the capital. Relief flights were flown throughout Haiti, as well as supply flights from

Santo Domingo Santo Domingo, formerly known as Santo Domingo de Guzmán, is the capital and largest city of the Dominican Republic and the List of metropolitan areas in the Caribbean, largest metropolitan area in the Caribbean by population. the Distrito Na ...

Aruba Aruba, officially the Country of Aruba, is a constituent island country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, in the southern Caribbean Sea north of the Venezuelan peninsula of Paraguaná Peninsula, Paraguaná and northwest of Curaçao. In 19 ...

and

Curaçao Curaçao, officially the Country of Curaçao, is a constituent island country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located in the southern Caribbean Sea (specifically the Dutch Caribbean region), about north of Venezuela. Curaçao includ ...

. Charter flights for the Royal Dutch Marines, from their base in

Willemstad Willemstad ( ; ; ; ) is the capital city, capital and largest city of Curaçao, an island in the southern Caribbean Sea that is a Countries of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It was the cap ...

, Curaçao, were some of the first flights from outside the Haiti region. In September 2011, SALSA d'Haïti was accepted as a member of the IATA Multilateral Interline Transport Agreement (MITA). The airline ceased operations in 2013.ch-aviation.com - Salsa d'Haiti
retrieved 23 January 2021

Destinations

SALSA maintained interline or

codeshare A codeshare agreement, also known simply as codeshare, is a business arrangement, common in the aviation industry, in which two or more airlines publish and market the same flight under their own airline designator and flight number (the "airli ...

agreements with the several airlines. Operations connected at Port-au-Prince where passengers had to transfer from the international airport to the domestic airport for onward transportation to domestic destinations. SALSA provided complementary transportation between the Port-au-Prince international and domestic terminals.

Fleet

At the time of its closure, the airline operated the following aircraft:

Former fleet

Incidents and accidents

* On February 13, 2011, a SALSA Jetstream 31 arriving in

from Cap Haitien experienced issues with the left-wing

landing gear Landing gear is the undercarriage of an aircraft or spacecraft that is used for taxiing, takeoff or landing. For aircraft, it is generally needed for all three of these. It was also formerly called ''alighting gear'' by some manufacturers, s ...

locking into landing position due to a hydraulics system failure. After 30 minutes of attempting to drop the landing gear, the aircraft was forced to make an

emergency landing An emergency landing is a premature landing made by an aircraft in response to an emergency involving an imminent or ongoing threat to the safety and operation of the aircraft, or involving a sudden need for a passenger or crew on board to term ...

with only two of the three wheels locked for landing. All 19 passengers and 2 crew members safely evacuated with minor injuries. The aircraft, HH-ANA, was significantly damaged. * On September 20, 2011, a SALSA Beechcraft 99 went down outside of Cap Haitien. 2 pilots and 1 passenger were on board at the time of the incident, there were no survivors. Authorities are currently investigating the cause.
/ref> This aircraft departed from Cap Haitien even though all but one passenger refused to go and other scheduled flights, including Tortug’Air, cancelled flights because of terrible weather conditions, between Cap Haitien and Port-au-Prince. Salsa flew into a violent cumulo nimbus shortly after takeoff and crashed.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Salsa d'Haiti 2008 establishments in Haiti Airlines established in 2008 Airlines disestablished in 2013 Defunct airlines of Haiti