International airport serving French Guiana
Cayenne ? Felix Eboue Airport
(French:
Aeroport de Cayenne ? Felix Eboue
,
IATA
:
CAY
,
ICAO
:
SOCA
) is
French Guiana
's main international airport. It is located near the
commune
of
Matoury
, 13 kilometres (8 mi) southwest of French Guiana's capital city of
Cayenne
. It is managed by the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of French Guiana (CCI Guyane).
[1]
Air Guyane Express
has its headquarters on the airport property.
[7]
History
[
edit
]
The first airfield at Cayenne, called "Gallion," was built in 1943 in ten months by the U.S. Army Air Corps as a base allowing bombers to reach Africa. Though quickly abandoned upon the completion of the new airport, it can still be found very close to the aerodrome.
The new airport was first given the name "Rochambeau" in reference to
Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau
, commander-in-chief of the French troops in the
American Revolutionary War
.
[8]
It was purchased by France in 1949.
This name was controversial because the airport's namesake's son,
Donatien-Marie-Joseph de Vimeur, vicomte de Rochambeau
, harshly repressed the
Haitian Revolution
during the
Saint-Domingue expedition
.
Christiane Taubira
, then-Member of the
National Assembly of France
for Guiana, requested in 1999 that the name be changed. Multiple proposals were submitted, including
Ceperou
, a seventeenth-century indigenous chief. It was finally renamed
Felix Eboue
Airport in 2012, the change becoming official in January of that year.
[9]
[10]
The
code
for the airport remains CAY.
[11]
Felix Eboue Airport serves approximately 400,000 passengers per year.
[12]
Facilities
[
edit
]
The airport has an elevation of 24 feet (7 m) above
mean sea level
. It has one paved
runway
.
[3]
It is open to public air traffic and international air traffic.
Airlines and destinations
[
edit
]
Statistics
[
edit
]
Passengers
[15]
2000
|
2005
|
2006
|
2007
|
2008
|
2009
|
2010
|
2011
|
2012
|
457 168
|
375 844
|
374 394
|
386 979
|
385 142
|
400 025
|
423 849
|
435 440
|
495 994
|
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
External links
[
edit
]
Media related to
Cayenne-Rochambeau Airport
at Wikimedia Commons
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Overseas
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Unscheduled
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International
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Unscheduled
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