Tears and joy on Britain’s St Helena as ‘world’s most useless airport’ finally opens

JAMESTOWN, St Helena (Reuters) - One of humanity’s most isolated outposts joined the 21st century on Saturday when the British island of St. Helena, home to “the world’s most useless airport”, welcomed its first commercial flight. As the inaugural plane from Johannesburg touched down on the forbidding volcanic outcrop in the middle of the south Atlantic, the travel and history buffs on board clapped and cheered.

“I’ve never felt so emotional in all my life,” said Libby Weir-Breen, a British travel operator who has been bringing tourists to the island, 1,200 miles (1,900 km) west of the African nation of Angola, for the last 12 years. She had flown in specially from Scotland to be on the plane, and dabbed away tears as it touched down on the spectacular cliff-side runway. “I never thought I’d see this day,” she said.

The 4,500 people living on St Helena, a British colony since 1658 most famous as the windswept outpost where French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte breathed his last - might also be forgiven for thinking the day would never come.

There has been talk of building an airport on St Helena since the 1930s. The best site – one of the few flat spaces on the notoriously craggy island – was ruled out because of a nearby breeding ground for the wirebird, an endangered species of plover.

An airport at the new site, on top of a valley filled in with 8 million cubic metres of rock, suffered numerous setbacks and delays as costs ballooned to 285 million pounds, to the horror of the British government.

The runway and terminal were completed in 2016 but the official opening was pushed back another year after test flights were buffeted by wicked cross-winds, making it unsafe for large aircraft to use.

With Britain mired in financial austerity, the London media were quick to condemn it as a white elephant, or “the world’s most useless airport”, with a price tag of more than 60,000 pounds for every Saint, as the island’s residents are known.

Before the opening of the airport, which will receive weekly flights to and from the South African commercial capital, the only way to St. Helena was a five-night voyage from Cape Town aboard the RMS St Helena, a British postal ship.