Vieques Air Link

For other uses, see Airlink (disambiguation).
Vieques Air Link
IATA ICAO Callsign
V4 VES Vieques
Founded 1965 (1965)
Hubs Antonio Rivera Rodríguez Airport
Destinations 10
Headquarters Puerto Rico
Website viequesairlink.com

Vieques Air Link (VAL, IATA code:V4) is a small Puerto Rican airline company that links Vieques with Culebra and mainland Puerto Rico.

History

Operations began on 1965, with owner Osvaldo "Val" Gonzalez-Duriex piloting a plane with three passengers from Vieques to Humacao. A Cherokee aircraft and another airplane were also acquired later, allowing the airline to serve Isla Verde International Airport.

In 1968, Vieques Air Link added a flight to St. Croix in the Virgin Islands.

In 1980 Fajardo airport was built and Vieques Air Link started flights to the new airport immediately. In the 1980s the company increased the frequency of flights to San Juan, Humacao and Culebra. In 1989, Vieques Air Link lost its entire fleet to Hurricane Hugo. However, it soon acquired seven Britten-Norman Islanders and three Trislanders.

In the 1990s VAL got into financial trouble. With the Vieques conflict, more and more Puerto Ricans began flying Vieques Air Link every day to go to military camps to protest, and the police also had to fly their personnel and the people arrested in those areas on VAL planes at various times. Others, like political leaders Ruben Berrios and Fernando Martín, and the 2002 Miss Puerto Rico Carla Tricoli, who is a Viequense, have had pictures taken by the press aboard VAL planes while flying to Vieques, giving the airline a new wave of unpaid-for promotional attention. In addition, on June, 2000, the airline made the cover of Islander News magazine, under the headline "Vieques Air Link: How To Survive a Hurricane", about the airline's fleet loss of 1989 and how it survived the potentially fatal financial disaster.[1]

In 2008, VAL added a new route between Antonio Rivera Rodríguez Airport (VQS) in Vieques and the new José Aponte de la Torre Airport (RVR) at the former Roosevelt Roads Naval Base in Ceiba, shortening the flight between Vieques and the Puerto Rican mainland to seven or eight minutes in a Cessna Caravan.

Destinations

Vieques Air Link provides service at the following locations:[2]

[Hub]Hub
[F]Future destination
[S]Seasonal
[T] Terminated destination
City Country IATA ICAO Airport Refs
Ceiba, Puerto Rico Puerto RicoRVRTJRVJosé Aponte de la Torre Airport
Culebra Puerto Rico CPXTJCPBenjamín Rivera Noriega Airport
Fajardo Puerto RicoFAJTJFADiego Jimenez Torres Airport
Isla Grande Puerto RicoSIGTJIGFernando Luis Ribas Dominicci Airport
San Juan Puerto Rico SJUTJSJLuis Muñoz Marín International Airport
St. Croix United States Virgin Islands STXTISXHenry E. Rohlsen Airport
St. Thomas, USVI United States Virgin IslandsSTTTISTCyril E. King Airport
Vieques Puerto RicoVQSTJVQAntonio Rivera Rodríguez Airport

Fleet

Accidents and incidents

See also

References


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