MONTREAL, Oct. 20, 2016 /CNW Telbec/ - To help people in Haiti severely affected by Hurricane Matthew, Air Transat will operate a humanitarian flight from Montreal to Port-au-Prince on November 15, 2016. The carrier will be transporting emergency supplies provided by the charity Food For The Poor Canada, including supplies to help prevent the spread of cholera, along with aid workers from various charitable organizations.
"For 20 years, Air Transat and Haiti have had a longstanding partnership in the areas of economic and tourism development," said Jean-François Lemay, President of Air Transat. "As a responsible company, we feel is it essential to contribute to ongoing relief efforts and help meet the urgent needs of the people affected by the storm," he added.
Hurricane Matthew's greatest impact was to the southwestern coastal regions of the country, between Les Cayes and Jérémie, four to six hours by road from Port-au-Prince. Infrastructures in Port-au-Prince and Pétion-Ville, on the Côte des Arcadins, at Cap-Haïtien and in Jacmel were undamaged, and as a result Air Transat flights and Transat tourism operations are continuing as normal.
Following the January 12, 2010, earthquake that devastated the country, Air Transat made four humanitarian flights in support of the Haitian population. In cooperation with various organizations, the airline ferried more than 100 tonnes of goods and hundreds of humanitarian aid workers to Haiti. It also brought the first earthquake orphans adopted by Canadian families to their new country.
Individuals and corporations are encouraged to make online donations at www.FoodForThePoor.ca.
About Air Transat
Air Transat is Canada's leading holiday travel airline. Every year, it carries some 3 million passengers to nearly 60 destinations in 30 countries aboard its fleet of Boeing narrow-body and Airbus wide-body jets. The company employs more than 2,500 people. Air Transat is a business unit of Transat A.T. Inc., an integrated international tour operator with more than 60 destination countries and that distributes products in over 50 countries. Air Transat was named Best North American Leisure Airline at the Skytrax annual World Airline Awards, held in July 2016.
About Food For The Poor Canada
Food For The Poor Canada (FFPC) empowers communities in Haiti and Jamaica through five areas of programming: food, housing, education, health and livelihood. Through basic aid and sustainable development, FFPC responds to urgent needs while building community and social infrastructure. FFPC utilizes the pre-existing infrastructure of local affiliated organizations, so as to better sustain and grow the communities they serve. FFPC is part of the Food For The Poor family of charities; the founding organization in the USA is Food For The Poor, an interdenominational Christian organization that works in 17 countries in the Caribbean and Latin America.
SOURCE Transat A.T. Inc.
Contacts: Odette Trottier, Director, Communications and Corporate Affairs, Transat A.T. Inc., 514 908-8891, odette.trottier@transat.com ; Samantha Mahfood, Executive Director, Food For The Poor Canada, 647 350-7269, samantham@foodforthepoor.com