Boa Vista International Airport is preparing to receive its first jetliner. The airport’s certification process, which began on Wednesday, is already heading toward its final leg. The Cape Verdean Civil Aeronautics Agency and a group of specialists from New Zealand, who also carried out the tests during the certification process of Praia’s international airport, have concluded runway measurements and electronic equipment tests. Tomorrow, Saturday, one of TACV Cabo Verde Airline’s Boeing 757s is expected to land on the runway in the airport’s first landing and take-off test. First aid and emergency disaster tests are scheduled to take place today at the airport.

Preliminary measurements have already been carried out at Boa Vista International Airport. The inspection crew has already measured the runway and checked internal control equipment, check-in counters, and baggage claim belts, among other things. Today, the airport’s ability to provide first aid and emergency response will be tested with fire engines and ambulances.

All indications are that the inspection process is taking place normally, and sources from Airport and Air Security company ASA guarantee than no anomalies have been encountered so far. The runway and all of the airport’s equipment, says A Semana Online’s source, fall within international civil aviation norms.

If all goes well by tomorrow, Boa Vista International Airport, as the government has guaranteed on several occasions, should begin operations by the end of the month. The only issue to be resolved is the situation of the compensation payments for those claiming to be the owners of the lands expropriated in order to build the airport. So far, the government has made no payments to the landowners, as it had agreed to do in February. In August, the owners of the lands on which the airport was built threatened to blockade the structure if the government failed to pay them what they are owned prior to the official opening.

There are rumors on the islands that the landowners may hold a manifestation during the test landing of TACV’s Boeing tomorrow. A battalion from the National Police’s Corps of Intervention has already arrived on Boa Vista in order to guarantee order. The 36 officers made their way to the island from Praia in order, according to the rumors, to “intimidate” the landowners.

A Semana Online spoke with a representative of the owners of the expropriated lands, Luís Reis Spencer, who said that no plans were in the works to hold a manifestation. Reis guaranteed that the organization had no intention of holding a protest over the coming days, and that such a manifestation would only take place upon the airport’s official opening. “As far as we know, tomorrow’s flight is only a runway test. But if they don’t resolve our problem by the end of the month, when the airport is officially opened, we’ll definitely do something.”

Informed regarding the arrival on the island of 36 officers from the Corps of Intervention, Reis said that “if they’re arming themselves against us by bringing the SWAT brigade to intimidate us, they’ve made a mistake. We’re not afraid of the police. We’re happy about the airport here on Boa Vista, and we want it to open in peace and harmony. But before that they have to resolve our problem,” said the spokesman of the landowners, who also announced that his organization will have a meeting next week with Prime Minister José Maria Neves, in which they will present their problems and try to find a way to solve them.

Source: A Semana