Following the restoration of Category 6 status at Saint Helena Airport on Sunday, we are pleased to confirm that the first scheduled Airlink flight visited St Helena Island today.
We were able to bring back all our delayed residents who wished to travel, as well as supporting around half of the waiting tourists to leave the island on the return flight. An urgent medical patient was also conveyed, saving the need for a dedicated medevac flight.
We anticipate that the backlog of tourists waiting to leave the island will be fully addressed with Saturday’s Airlink flight.
Bookings for future flights to and from St Helena are now open again. Please contact Airlink, Solomons or your usual travel provider if you need to book a new or replacement flight.
We are working closely with Airlink and the Ascension Island Government (AIG) to find an early flight window to Ascension Island. Due to the unique nature of St Helena’s airport, only certain pilots and crew have approved flight status, which means managing their regulated flying hours can be challenging, especially at short notice. We will continue to keep the public updated.
Today’s flight also delivered additional spare parts to support the repairs to fire tender R2, which we hope to have fully operational later this week to add resilience to our airport fleet. In the meantime, we remain grateful to St Helena Fire and Rescue Service for their continued support.
After today, we will no longer issue daily updates, but we will continue to communicate key messages as and when necessary. The Gold Command team will continue meeting regularly to consider the long-term recovery strategy for the island and to ensure that any necessary learning takes place to avoid repetition of this incident.
We remain grateful to the public for their support and resilience.
Updated Q&A
The latest version of the Q&A document can be accessed here.
