Above: a Sunrise Airways plane

By the Caribbean Journal staff

New Haitian air carrier Sunrise Airways has opened a new maintenance facility in the Dominican Republic, making it the first airline from Haiti to have its own in-house maintenance capabilities.

The new 8,000-square-foot facility is located at Cibao International Airport in the Dominican Republic’s Santiago.

It has the capacity to store three of Sunrise’s 19-seat Jetstream 32 EP aircrafts, each of which has 19 seats.

The company recently announced plans to expand service to Jamaica and Providenciales in the Turks and Caicos Islands.

“In order for us to grow and achieve our goal of uniting the Western Caribbean with improved regional air service, having our own maintenance facility is a must,” said Philippe Bayard, President of Sunrise Airways, in a release. “Our Santiago facility is convenient to our base of operations in Port-au-Prince and carries all the necessary approvals from the Office National de l’Aviation Civile (OFNAC), giving us a solid foundation upon which to build our network.”

Sunrise, which launched in November of last year, currently serves domestic routes within Haiti.