Could The World's Worst Airport Be In Roatan?

[CAPTAIN SINBAD]

I think you don't understand the fact that tourism is a big part of Honduras' GDP, it indirectly funds a lot of things in the rest of country like roads, schools, police stations, social programs... and directly funds a lot of people in the tourist zones by providing pay checks for them through having a job directly related to tourism like dive master, waiter, hotel clerk and then multiplies indirectly through the community through those people spending their paychecks at the gas station, the grocery store, the furniture store...

If you realize the importance of tourism in this country you understand the importance of providing tourists a means to keep being a tourist in that country- being able to fly in and out of it. So yes as boggling as it may seem, it's really important to spend a small amount of your resources on something like the airport to ensure the huge return on the investment you get year after year.

Not everyone in Roatan wants to make their living doing 110 ft bounce dives 40 times a day on a cramped death trap of a lobster boat until you are paralyzed for life from decompression sickness.

But I am sure that you understand that a tourist who goes to Honduras for a week spends a total of 10080 minutes on that island. Out of those 10080 minutes, 90 minutes are spent at the airport. This amounts to 1.1% if his total vacation time.

While you demand that these guys some how fix that 1% of your tourist experience, let us also keep in mind that their ability to fix anything is connected to their economic reality. Honduras is the second poorest country in Central America with 75% of the entire population classified as poor by international standards; not by American standards but by international standards. An average person there works a full year to earn 580 USD. Imagine yourself in a job that paid 580 a year. Now imagine if there is no rain, you have no water to drink and you have to get it from a polluted stream. You know your kids will be sick after drinking that and when they do, there is no hospital. but you have no choice.

And no, tourism is not the bread and butter of Honduras. Agriculture on the other hand is. Sugar, palm oil and coffee is what keeps most of them alive. Apparel industry and wood products also help. You and I, with our 34 dollars of departure tax are really not keeping that nation alive no matter how much it suits us to believe.

 

[mmmbelows]

You took a lot of what I said and twisted it. I never said tourism was there "bread and butter" or what you're saying is their most important part of their economy. I said it's a big part and as a part of it you need to maintain the infrastructure associated with that part of the economy. You're also trying to minimize the experience basing it on only the portion of time in proportion to a tourists entire time spent in country. That argument is meaningless, it's not the amount of time its the amount of pain. In a 24 hour day would it be acceptable to you for me to drive a 6 inch nail into your arm if I only did it for 3 seconds of the 86,000 seconds of a day? I didn't demand anything nor does the $580 personal average income of the citizens matter, by your logic an airport shouldn't even ever have been built because the millions of dollars spent is outrageous in comparison to a Honduran's $580 income.

Bottom line is tourism is a large part of their GDP, they do spend money maintaining and investing in their infrastructure to attract and keep tourism coming. Your argument that nothing should be spent goes against what they already are doing, they obviously spend money already so it's not some American Empirical Colonial idea forced upon them. You could spin your mentality against any modern convenience that exists on Roatan such as how arrogant it is to have electricity or hot water in a hotel or resort in Roatan when so many in main land Hondurans don't have it. You could spin your mentality to say how arrogant it is for anyone to spend thousands of dollars going there just to swim around underwater at 50 minute intervals to look a stupid fish while there are Hondurans going hungry. Lot of windmills out there for you to endless joust.

 

[mmmbelows]

In regard to the airport, things must have really changed for the worst over the years, it's been 4 or 5 years since I've been to Roatan, but the many times I've been there I can't really say that the airport was a problem, it was a typical sh*t hole tropical airport, but I can't recall ever going through what people are describing, when did it change?

 

[Oldbear]

I been to crappy airports in the Middle East, Asia and Central America...including Roatan's which in my opinion is not bad at all. By far the worst I have been thru was Baghdad's in the early 2000s. While later it got fixed but the local Iraqis took control and would steal everything what was not hidden on your person. Many times they tried to "confiscate" my dive computer and regs but could not figure what they were or how they would benefit the thieves. No Roatan's airport is not that bad.

 

[tridacna]

We can debate this forever but nothing will get done. The only way that change will be effected is if tourist numbers fall off. Highly unlikely so we're most likely stuck with this third world dump for a long while.

 

[Hoyden]

The airport in Manado, Sulawesi is much worse, but the diving is better. Too bad I can't afford go to that crappy airport every year and stand in line. Until I can afford that, I am happy to stand in line in Roatan. I do have hope that my next trip (July) will be a little better since I am trying the new Honduran Immigration Pre-check. In general, the worse the airport, the better the diving.

 

[Doc]

.... The only way that change will be effected is if tourist numbers fall off.

That is simply just not the way things happen in Honduras. That would make sense to us, but to them? No.

 

[dmaziuk]

That is simply just not the way things happen in Honduras. That would make sense to us, but to them? No.

It's not the way things happen in very many places. I suspect it's not the way things happen on most of of the planet, by numbers. That doesn't mean we can't bitch about it.

 

[chillyinCanada]

I was recently in the Monado airport and thought things went smoothly, considering where I was. I dislike Jakarta's international airport a lot more, at least until I'm leaving and in the shopping area. Otherwise, I find it a huge PITA. Monado was fine.

 

[chillyinCanada]

"If you can't change something you don't like, change your attitude." I do try so hard to do that in the Jakarta airport. Lately, it seems to have helped a little.