{"id":125080,"date":"2014-10-10T13:15:10","date_gmt":"2014-10-10T17:15:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dominicanewsonline.com\/news\/?p=125080"},"modified":"2014-10-10T13:48:20","modified_gmt":"2014-10-10T17:48:20","slug":"commentary-dominicas-melville-hall-airport-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dominicanewsonline.com\/news\/homepage\/features\/commentary\/commentary-dominicas-melville-hall-airport-politics\/","title":{"rendered":"COMMENTARY: Dominica&#8217;s Melville Hall Airport and its politics"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_56575\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-56575\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-56575\" src=\"http:\/\/dominicanewsonline.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/melville-hall-at-night-300x193.jpg\" alt=\"Melville Hall Airport at night\" width=\"300\" height=\"193\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dominicanewsonline.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/melville-hall-at-night-300x193.jpg 300w, https:\/\/dominicanewsonline.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/melville-hall-at-night-642x413.jpg 642w, https:\/\/dominicanewsonline.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/melville-hall-at-night-150x96.jpg 150w, https:\/\/dominicanewsonline.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/melville-hall-at-night.jpg 725w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-56575\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Melville Hall Airport at night<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Melville Hall is a small airport tucked away beneath the hills of Marigot on the northeast coast of Dominica. Since 1958 it has been a historic migratory corridor to points North, south and beyond for our people. Construction of the airstrip was completed in 1958 soon after the completion of the Trans-insular road.<\/p>\n<p>In 1961, funds from the Commonwealth Development and Welfare program made it possible to lengthen the airport runway and the building of a proper terminal.<\/p>\n<p>Melville Hall has been the &#8216;road of flight&#8217; for Dominicans from all walks of life and socio-economic backgrounds. The road on which many who traveled to the Florida Straits and points further north along the Atlantic seaboard and beyond. It has been the port of departure for the labourers who had enough and finally took their chances in other places far away from their villages. It has also been the departure point for the young, brilliant and confident Dominicans heading to college campuses abroad.<\/p>\n<p>In spite of proposals and &#8216;political talk&#8217; of an international airport by politicians and different administrations, Melville Hall is still serving the citizens of this country in the best possible way it can. The departures at Melville Hall teach Dominicans what it means to leave one\u2019s home. Almost every aircraft\u2019s departing means that somebody&#8217;s dream to leave our small island to better themselves and their families. The flights at Melville Hall carried away the people you knew and loved dearly and later brought these people back as \u2018disapora\u2019 strangers. People who had experienced a different lifestyle elsewhere far and near from the shores of Dominica.<\/p>\n<p>With the building of Canefield airport, the economic importance and popularity of Melville Hall decreased immensely for a short time. The word Melville Hall then sounded like a place and an old girlfriend that belonged to a &#8216;by- gone&#8217; era and the past. What remained were the beautiful scenery of the surrounding lush green mountains and a wide open void of the small airport itself. Occasionally the high pitch and noisy sound of a cargo plane or the rattling of stairs of a rare daily LIAT flight would awaken the silence of the surrounding rain forests.<\/p>\n<p>The convenience of the Canfield airport just outside of the capital city (Roseau), compared to the 24 miles from Melville Hall passing through the steep hills, valleys and hairpin turns and winding roads of Morne Deux Branche from Roseau in the interior, seemed too much of a car hike for most travelers. Due to the frequent and dangerous cross winds and the short length of the runway at Canefield airport, the airlines and aviation authorities were uncomfortable with operations there. The decrease in operations at Canfield meant the resurrection, prominence and popularity of Melville Hall came full circle once again and the falling in love with that old girlfriend- Melville Hall- again.<\/p>\n<p>A few years ago while waiting at Heathrow International airport in London for a transatlantic flight to Washington DC, I got into a discussion with two gentlemen. An American businessman who was traveling to (LAX) Los Angeles Airport and a Brit who was heading to Malta. The American had visited Dominica some time ago and landed at Melville Hall airport on a LIAT flight. He said that he was very frightened as the pilot approached the runway. He asked why the government isn\u2019t building another airport in another location to accommodate international Air travel.<\/p>\n<p>I jokingly asked him if he knew of any Hedge Fund investors in America who could underwrite the costs of constructing an international airport on the island and would he underwrite business ventures to support it. I found myself emotionally defending Melville Hall and our mountainous island. I told the two gentlemen that Melville Hall was not LAX where some 770,000 flights depart and arrive annually, and in time it would be much easier to travel to Dominica by air from any point of origin. At the end of our discussion I could not help but to remember and reflect on the contentious and divisive political debates and arguments that have occurred at home on the building of an International airport during the past five decades.<\/p>\n<p>No matter what is done to Melville Hall, I will always remember the first time I flew out of that airport destined for North America armed with my dreams and having fears of the big city. I also vividly remember the silent, sad and confused faces of my relatives in the small departure area when that moment was disturbed by the rusty sounds of the aircraft\u2019s engines.<\/p>\n<p>The engines&#8217; roar signaled in a very real way that I would be saying \u2018adios\u2019 to my kinfolks and to the mountains and river valley of La Plaine and the rest of Dominica. While the plane was taxiing just before it airborned, I recalled my late grand Pa, Burton Allan, saying to me the day before on our steps under a beautiful rainbow in the La Plaine sky after a torrential down pour, &#8220;There are some men who go and some who stay and there is a big difference between staying and going&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>A few minutes later the plane disappeared into the blue Caribbean skies over the watchful eyes of choppy waters of the southern Atlantic. Life would never be the same again for me. Whenever I listen to Harry Bellefonte&#8217;s hit song, Jamaica Farewell, I always remember that sunny Sunday afternoon when I left Dominica aboard a LIAT Jet Plane destined for a college campus in the U.S.A.<\/p>\n<p>Since that maiden trip out of Melville Hal armed with a dollar and a dream, I have traveled in and out of many airports in the world. But that flight has left an indelible mark on my mind and social consciousness because of the anguish I felt at that time because of the range of emotions and extraordinary amount of self- introspection I experienced. The cost of departure (migration), the cost of the sacrifice and the cost of transformation have been high and sometimes painful, but also very rewarding. Crowded with unforgettable portraits of various emotions when one leaves the safe and secure surroundings of home, says something about our resilience and something important about us as a people from a small island nation.<\/p>\n<p>Dominica continues to produce &#8216;rich&#8217; citizens in variety, tones and textures whether we hail from the towns, valleys, or hills. These experiences have taught me that as a small nation we all should support Dominica and not necessary political parties and belligerent political personalities with larger than life egos. In the end, the human spirit always prevails and triumphs wherever we find ourselves after we depart Melville Hall. On my many return trips to Dominica, I still find it nostalgic but also frightening and a bit entertaining witnessing the fear in the eyes of some passengers during take- offs and landings as the planes clear the mountains and battle cross winds.<\/p>\n<p>General Douglas MacArthur, the supreme commander of Allied forces in the Pacific during World War II, once said, &#8220;Old soldiers never die, they just fade away&#8221;.\u00a0Melville Hall airport is like an old soldier who has stood the test of time and battle. Plane crashes, political, and professional engineering expert condemnation, popularity contests, and now an unnecessary name change. What seems to determine if it still has life depends on who occupies the seat of the Prime Minister.<\/p>\n<p>It is a very sad story and commentary that for over fifty years, Dominicans have heard the same old &#8216;recycled nonsense&#8217; about Melville Hall by different politicians.\u00a0This empty rhetoric gets louder and more intense around election time. Today it is no different with the cheap political \u2018talk\u2019 of the building of an International airport and changing its name because elections are around the corner. Of course we desperately need an international airport to facilitate adequate air access to develop our island home but the planning and construction of that facility must involve all sectors. Not just foreigners who have deep pockets, altered intentions, twisted agendas and the technical know-how and their facilitators and questionable collaborators at home. Also the arrogant and ill-advised politicians who make these decisions at will without consultation or consideration for the laws of our land must understand that \u2018We the People\u2019 are all in this together.<\/p>\n<p>For brave, seasoned and restless air travelers, glancing at an aircraft&#8217;s window during arrivals and departures at Melville Hall, it is a priceless bargain. Beautiful majestic rolling hills, rivers and mountains, tropical rain forests, the rugged Dominican coastline, say hello and good-bye. History will always be kind to this small airport, which nestles in the foothills along the Atlantic Ocean not matter its final name, fate or destination is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Melville Hall is a small airport tucked away beneath the hills of Marigot on the northeast coast of Dominica. Since 1958 it has been a historic migratory corridor to points North, south and beyond for our people. Construction of the&#8230;","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_cbd_carousel_blocks":"[]","footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-125080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>COMMENTARY: Dominica&#039;s Melville Hall Airport and its politics - Dominica News Online<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/dominicanewsonline.com\/news\/homepage\/features\/commentary\/commentary-dominicas-melville-hall-airport-politics\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"COMMENTARY: Dominica&#039;s Melville Hall Airport and its politics - Dominica News Online\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Melville Hall is a small airport tucked away beneath the hills of Marigot on the northeast coast of Dominica. 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