page_title: Prinair
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Prinair / History
caption_attribution_description: English: De Havilland Heron of Prinair at Opa Locka airport Florida in 1987
context_page_description: Prinair is a Puerto Rican charter operator airline. It was Puerto Rico's domestic and international flag carrier airline for almost two decades from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s. Despite previously ceasing scheduled commercial operations twice, it restarted charter flights in 2019.
context_section_description: Service began in 1966 under the name Aerolíneas de Ponce (Ponce Airlines) with Aero Commander aircraft. The initial service flew from Mercedita Airport in Ponce to Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport (then known as Isla Verde International Airport) in San Juan. The company's name was changed to Prinair the following year (Puerto Rico INternational AIR lines).
  The airline later used de Havilland Heron piston-engined aircraft for its services.  Prinair introduced their own version of the Heron by converting the aircraft to use 300 hp Continental IO-520 engines in place of the original 250 hp Gipsy Queen 30-2 engines.  The Prinair fleet which grew to over 20 aircraft was the largest Heron fleet in the world. During the 1970s, expansion saw the airline start cargo freighter services to Opa-locka (a Florida location near Miami) as well as passenger service to Santo Domingo, the Virgin Islands (U.S. and British), Martinique, Barbados, Puerto Plata, and other Caribbean destinations, as well as Vieques, Mayagüez, Culebra and Aguadilla on the domestic side.
  During 1978, Nicolas Nogueras, a Puerto Rican politician, sought a writ of certiorari against Prinair at the United States Supreme Court; he was denied.
  
  In the early 1980s, Prinair introduced into service larger and more capable Convair 580 turboprop aircraft. This provided the plane spotter at San Juan with another interesting aircraft type to look out for, but did little for the airline other than help increase the earnings from the Virgin Islands routes. Increased competition for these routes from Aero Virgin Islands and Oceanair, in addition to a measure of distrust from the public that had not forgotten a number of fatal crashes, resulted in Prinair ceasing operations in 1985. It was the intention that Prinair would have been one of the launch customers of the CASA CN-235 and at the roll-out of the new aircraft in September 1983 the prototype was actually painted in Prinair colors (right side only).
   However, the demise of Prinair prevented delivery.  The airline did operate an earlier CASA-manufactured aircraft, the C-212 Aviocar turboprop.
  In 2007, the airline resumed operations with Piper Chieftain propeller-driven aircraft; The airline again ceased all flights in 2010.
  The company's Prinairtours announced that in 2019 Prinair would relaunch flights as a charter airline, starting with services between Aguadilla on Puerto Rico's northwest coast and Punta Cana, Dominican Republic.
caption: De Havilland Heron freighter of Prinair at Opa-locka Airport near Miami in 1987
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