Haiti’s Sunrise Airways to deploy A320 for Cuba routes

Sunrise Airways (S6, Port au Prince) has announced it will upgrade the equipment it uses on its routes from Port au Prince to Cuba to an A320-200 as of December 1, 2020. “Sunrise Airways took advantage of these eight months of blockage to completely rethink its fleet strategy. We will now provide our passengers with a newer and more comfortable aircraft, the Airbus A320, arguably one of the most efficient and safe aircraft in its class,” the Haitian carrier said. The airline did not respond to ch-aviation’s request for comment regarding the identity of the A320. It is unclear whether Sunrise Airways plans to dry- or wet-lease the narrowbody. Sunrise Airways plans to use the A320 to operate to Havana Int’l, Santiago de Cuba (3x weekly each), Holguin, and Camagüey (2x weekly each). Prior to the pandemic, the airline wet-leased a B737-300 from Peruvian Airlines (PVN, Lima Int’l) to operate its flights to Cuba, some of which operated via Santo Domingo Las Américas. It planned to upgrade to a B737-400 from the same operator during the Summer 2020 season but these plans were halted by the pandemic. Sunrise Airways restarted limited services to Cuba this month using its in-house Jetstream 32s. The Haitian carrier used to wet-lease an A320-200 from South Africa’s Global Aviation Operations (GE, Johannesburg O.R. Tambo) in 2017/18.