Cayenne – Félix Éboué Airport (French: Aéroport de Cayenne – Félix Éboué, IATA: CAY, ICAO: SOCA) is French Guiana's main international airport. It is located near the commune of Matoury, 13 kilometres (8 mi) southwest of French Guiana's capital city of Cayenne. It is managed by the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of French Guiana (CCI Guyane).[1]
Cayenne – Félix Éboué Airport formerly Rochambeau Airport | |||||||||||
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| Summary | |||||||||||
| Airport type | Public | ||||||||||
| Operator | CCI Guyane[1] | ||||||||||
| Serves | Cayenne, French Guiana | ||||||||||
| Location | Matoury | ||||||||||
| Elevation AMSL | 26 ft / 8 m | ||||||||||
| Coordinates | 04°49′11″N 52°21′43″W / 4.81972°N 52.36194°W | ||||||||||
| Map | |||||||||||
  CAY Location in French Guiana | |||||||||||
| Runways | |||||||||||
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| Statistics (2023) | |||||||||||
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Air Guyane Express has its headquarters on the airport property.[7]
History
The first airfield at Cayenne, called "Gallion," was built in 1943 in ten months by the U.S. Army Air Corps as a base allowing bombers to reach Africa. Though quickly abandoned upon the completion of the new airport, it can still be found very close to the aerodrome.
The new airport was first given the name "Rochambeau" in reference to Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau, commander-in-chief of the French troops in the American Revolutionary War.[8] It was purchased by France in 1949.
This name was controversial because the airport's namesake's son, Donatien-Marie-Joseph de Vimeur, vicomte de Rochambeau, harshly repressed the Haitian Revolution during the Saint-Domingue expedition. Christiane Taubira, then-Member of the National Assembly of France for Guiana, requested in 1999 that the name be changed. Multiple proposals were submitted, including Cépérou, a seventeenth-century indigenous chief. It was finally renamed Félix Éboué Airport in 2012, the change becoming official in January of that year.[9][10] The code for the airport remains CAY.[11]
Félix Eboué Airport serves approximately 400,000 passengers per year.[12]
Facilities
The airport has an elevation of 24 feet (7 m) above mean sea level. It has one paved runway.[3] It is open to public air traffic and international air traffic.
Airlines and destinations
Statistics
| 2000 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 457 168 | 375 844 | 374 394 | 386 979 | 385 142 | 400 025 | 423 849 | 435 440 | 495 994 |
See also
References
External links
Media related to Cayenne-Rochambeau Airport at Wikimedia Commons
