In recent years, the Blowing Point Ferry Terminal held the sway for arriving and departing passengers from throughout the world. The airport, for the most part, remained idle with taxi-drivers shying away from it and stationing themselves at the Blowing Point seaport for more passenger arrivals and pickups.
Now, the situation has rapidly changed with the Clayton J. Lloyd International Airport to be a beehive of activity with the arrival and service of American Airlines, with direct transatlantic flights to Anguilla from Miami, among other air services. At the same time, the Blowing Point Ferry Terminal, severely damaged by Hurricane Irma in September 2017, and eventually demolished, is being rebuilt and is lauded to be one of the finest Ferry Terminals and ports of entry in the region. It will also be a scene of significant numbers of arrivals and departures between Anguilla and the St. Martin-St. Maarten sea-link, including St. Barths, thus expected to compare very well with the volume of travel at the airport.
But while the seaport is being rebuilt, the focus is now on the Clayton J. Lloyd International airport where additional airline passenger checking counters, and other related spaces, have been under construction and are now completed this weekend.
“When American Airlines touchdown and persons are leaving Anguilla, they will have a much-improved facility to transverse in terms of the Clayton J. Lloyd International Airport,” Minister of Infrastructure and Aviation, Mr. Haydn Hughes stated. “Very near in the future, and we are talking perhaps from this Saturday [December 11], we will have Silver Airlines, American Airlines, Tradewind Aviation, Cape Air, Anguilla Air Services and Trans-Anguilla travelling in and out of Anguilla, plus private jet traffic all around the same time.”
Minister Hughes continued: “The Airport is now starting to live up to the promise that it was envisioned to be back in the early 197Os, so we are very excited about the prospects of the future for the Clayton J. Lloyd International Airport.”
Meanwhile, large crowds are expected to turn up at the airport on Saturday, December 11, for the commencement of twice-weekly flights of American Airlines to Anguilla on Wednesdays and Saturdays, with a third flight each Monday from January 5.
Minister of Tourism, Mr. Hughes, and Parliamentary Secretary, Tourism, Mrs. Quincia Gumbs-Marie, left Anguilla on Wednesday, December 8, for Florida to promote the Anguilla-Miami route at the American Airlines Gate at the Miami International Airport. The ceremony began on Thursday, December 9, culminating on Saturday, December 11. Both Mr. Hughes and Mrs. Gumbs-Marie will then return to Anguilla on that day on the American Airlines inaugural flight for a grand welcome and ribbon-cutting ceremony at the Clayton J. Lloyd’s International Airport. The event, to which the general public is invited, will be held shortly after 2.00 pm.
