They wept in the new airport and watched from the mountains as the first scheduled aircraft touched down at St Helena Airport on Saturday.

For over 500 years the only way to get to St Helena was by ship.

Yet this remote, extraordinarily scenic and historic island in the South Atlantic has been of such strategic importance that at one time a thousand ships would call there in a year, most famously the Union Castle Line that played such an important part in the development of Southern Africa.

This weekend that changed when Airlink started a weekly service using the new airport carved out of the side of the island by SA construction company Basil Read.

Islanders watched from the surrounding mountains and wept in the new airport building as the Airlink flight touched down and ushered in a new era.

Until now a 5 day voyage on the RMS St Helena from Cape Town was the quickest way to visit the island and as the ship carried on to Ascension Island it was 18 days before one could be back in Cape Town.

Using one of its new Embraer E190 jets, Airlink’s flight from Windhoek is under four hours. The aircraft starts the flight in Johannesburg and refuels in Windhoek, at the same time collecting passengers from a synchronised flight from Cape Town.

With the inauguration of a scheduled air service, the government of St Helena is very active in stimulating the development of tourism.

Napoleon was imprisoned  on the island for 6 years and died here after his defeat at Waterloo, some six thousand boer prisoners of war were sent here in 1900.

Zulu King Dinuzulu kaCetshwayo was imprisoned here  for ten years  in 1890 and later 25 Zulu chiefs were exiled to the Island for resisting the British poll tax in Natal. 

The first fruits of the new infrastructure include the Mantis group opening a new hotel on a prime site in Jamestown.

Mantis founder, Adrian Gardiner, told Tourism Update he had been in negotiations with St Helena authorities since the idea of the airport was originally mooted ten years ago. As a result he was given first choice when the government identified a number of possible sites. The Mantis 30 room hotel increases the number of rooms on the island by over 50 %.

Look out for Tourism Update’s special feature on St Helena in a forthcoming edition.

For further information contact Niall oKeeffe at niall.okeeffe@esh.co.sh mentioning this report in Tourism Update.