Antigua and Barbuda is a sovereign archipelagic country in the Caribbean. It lies at the conjuncture of the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean in the Leeward Islands part of the Lesser Antilles.
St. John's is the capital and largest city of Antigua and Barbuda, part of the West Indies in the Caribbean Sea. With a population of 22,219, St. John's is the commercial centre of the nation and the chief port of the island of Antigua.
Barbuda is an island and dependency located in the eastern Caribbean forming part of the twin-island state of Antigua and Barbuda as an autonomous entity. Barbuda is located approximately 30 miles (48 km) north of Antigua. The only settlements on the island are Codrington and its surrounding localities. Barbuda is a flat island with the western portion being dominated by Codrington Lagoon, and the eastern portion being dominated by the elevated plateau of the Barbuda Highlands, with salty ponds and scrubland spread throughout the island. The climate is classified as tropical marine.
V. C. Bird International Airport is an international airport located on the island of Antigua, 8 km (5.0 mi) northeast of St. John's, the capital of Antigua and Barbuda.
LIAT (1974) Ltd, also known as Leeward Islands Air Transport Services and operating as LIAT, was a regional airline headquartered in Antigua and Barbuda that operated high-frequency inter-island scheduled services to 15 destinations in the Caribbean. The airline's main base was V.C. Bird International Airport, Antigua and Barbuda, with a secondary base at Grantley Adams International Airport, Barbados.
Carib Aviation was an airline based in Antigua and Barbuda.
Princess Juliana International Airport is the main airport on the Caribbean island of Saint Martin. The airport is located on the Dutch side of the island, in the country of Sint Maarten, close to the shore of Simpson Bay Lagoon. In 2015, the airport handled 1,829,543 passengers and around 60,000 aircraft movements. The airport serves as a hub for Winair and is the major gateway for the smaller Leeward Islands, including Anguilla, Saba, Saint Barthélemy and Sint Eustatius. It is named after Queen Juliana of the Netherlands, who landed there while she was heir presumptive in 1944, the year after the airport opened. The airport has very low-altitude flyover landing approaches because one end of its runway is extremely close to the shore and Maho Beach. While Princess Juliana International is the primary aviation gateway to the island, there is also a smaller public-use airport on the French side, in the French Collectivity of Saint Martin, called Grand Case-Espérance Airport.
Antigua, also known as Waladli or Wadadli by the local population, is an island in the Lesser Antilles. It is one of the Leeward Islands in the Caribbean region and the most populous island of the country of Antigua and Barbuda. Antigua and Barbuda became an independent state within the Commonwealth of Nations on 1 November 1981.
Codrington is the only village on the island of Barbuda, which is part of the country of Antigua and Barbuda. Codrington coincides with the Codrington major division, one of the two major divisions on Barbuda. Situated on the Codrington Lagoon, Codrington is the country's northernmost settlement. The population of Codrington was 796 in 2011.
Terrance B. Lettsome International Airport, previously known as Beef Island Airport, is the main airport serving the British Virgin Islands, a British overseas territory in the Caribbean. The airport serves as the gateway to just about all of the islands within the BVI. The airport is also a gateway for inter-Caribbean travelers headed to the nearby U.S. Virgin Islands. Many travellers fly into Beef Island, with the intention of taking a ferry to the other smaller British Virgin Islands. The airport is located on Beef Island, a small island off the main island of Tortola, to which it is connected by the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge.
Codrington Lagoon is a long lagoon which takes up much of the west of the Caribbean island of Barbuda. Its access to the sea was once only via Cuffy Creek, at the northern tip of the lagoon, but in 2019 the western edge of the lagoon was destroyed by storms and the lagoon is now completely open to the sea. The water is shallow, and much of the shore of the northern half of the lagoon is marshland. The town of Codrington, the main settlement on the island, is located on the eastern shore of the lagoon.
Antigua and Barbuda lie in the eastern arc of the Leeward Islands of the Lesser Antilles, separating the Atlantic Ocean from the Caribbean Sea. Antigua is 650 km (400 mi) southeast of Puerto Rico; Barbuda lies 48 km (30 mi) due north of Antigua, and the uninhabited island of Redonda is 56 km (35 mi) southwest of Antigua.
Montserrat Airways Ltd, trading as FlyMontserrat, is an airline with its headquarters at John A. Osborne Airport in Gerald's, Montserrat. The airline flies from Montserrat to and from Antigua as well as from and to Nevis, with their Britten Norman BN-2 aircraft.
Gaston Alfonso Browne is an Antiguan politician serving as the prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda and leader of the Labour Party since 2014. Before entering politics, he was a banker and businessman.
Hummingbird Air was an airline offering scheduled and chartered air taxi services as well as cargo flights in the Caribbean. It was based at Henry E. Rohlsen Airport on the island of St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. The airline was founded in late 2013 by Sam Raphael, a Dominican hotelier who wanted to improve air service to Dominica. As of April 1, 2017, Hummingbird Air ceased operations. It served five destinations in the Caribbean with a fleet of three Beechcraft Model 99 aircraft. The company slogan was Connecting the hidden Caribbean.
Hurricane Irma was an extremely powerful and devastating tropical cyclone that was the first Category 5 hurricane to strike the Leeward Islands on record, followed by Maria two weeks later. At the time, it was considered the most powerful hurricane on record in the open Atlantic region, outside of the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico, until it was surpassed by Hurricane Dorian two years later. It was also the third-strongest Atlantic hurricane at landfall ever recorded, just behind the 1935 Labor Day Hurricane and Dorian. The ninth named storm, fourth hurricane, second major hurricane, and first Category 5 hurricane of the extremely active 2017 Atlantic hurricane season, Irma caused widespread and catastrophic damage throughout its long lifetime, particularly in the northeastern Caribbean and the Florida Keys. It was also the most intense hurricane to strike the continental United States since Katrina in 2005, the first major hurricane to make landfall in Florida since Wilma in the same year, and the first Category 4 hurricane to strike the state since Charley in 2004. The word Irmageddon was coined soon after the hurricane to describe the damage caused by the hurricane.
The Barbuda Land Acts establishes that the citizens of Barbuda communally own the land. The act specifies that residents must provide consent for major development projects on the island. The Government of Antigua and Barbuda passed the act on January 17, 2008.
Squatting in the island country of Antigua and Barbuda in the West Indies is the occupation of unused land or derelict buildings without the permission of the owner. Historically, native Barbudans were seen as squatters and after Hurricane Irma in 2017, Prime Minister Gaston Browne offered people he termed squatters the chance to buy their land.
Burton–Nibbs International Airport is an international airport in Barbuda, one of the main islands in Antigua and Barbuda. The airport is in the central portion of Barbuda, east of Codrington village. The project cost $55 million and was handled by a company called Bahamas Hot Mix.
Antigua and Barbuda maintains a significant aviation industry. In December 2024, there were two main commercial airports, V. C. Bird International Airport and Burton–Nibbs International Airport. The civil aviation industry is largely controlled by the central government, owning the largest airline, LIAT. However, the domestic flight industry is usually dominated by small airlines like BMN Air. Antigua and Barbuda also has a significant military aviation sector, being one of the only countries in the Caribbean to maintain an air force.
