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Transportation in Puerto Rico


Transportation in Puerto Rico includes a system of roads, highways, freeways, airports, ports and harbors, and railway systems, serving a population of approximately 4 million inhabitants year-round. It is funded primarily with both local and federal government funds.

Puerto Rico has a total of 30 airports (3 of which are international), including one in each of the smaller islands of Vieques and Culebra. The main airport is Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport, and consists of two runways and three concourses. It is by far the busiest airport in Puerto Rico, with direct connections to most major cities in the mainland United States, Latin America, the Caribbean, and Madrid, Spain.

The following are current and former passenger and cargo airlines based in Puerto Rico or with flights to Puerto Rico:

Sea-based transportation of any merchandise or persons shipped entirely or even partly by water between U.S. points—either directly or indirectly via one or any number of foreign points—U.S. Federal Law requires that said items or persons must travel in U.S.-built, U.S.-crewed, U.S.-citizen owned vessels that are U.S.-documented by the Coast Guard for such maritime "cabotage" carriage. This transportation/trade restriction includes Puerto Rico per the Jones Act of 1920 (Merchant Marine Act of 1920). The Jones Act and various other United States laws that govern the domestic and domestic-foreign-domestic transportation of merchandise and passengers by water between two points in the United States, including Puerto Rico, have been extended to that island-territory since the initial years of United States' political relations.

Strictly construed, the Jones Act refers only to Section 27 of the Merchant Marine Act of 1920, (46 U.S.C. § 883; 19 CFR 4.80 and 4.80(b)), which has come to bear the name of its original sponsor, Sen. Wesley L. Jones. Another law that was enacted in 1886 requires essentially the same standards for the transport of passengers between U.S. points, directly or indirectly transported through foreign ports or foreign points (46 App. U.S.C. 289; 19 CFR 4.80(a)). However, since the mid-1980s, as part of a joint effort between the cruise ship industry that serves Puerto Rico and Puerto Rican politicians such as then Resident Commissioner, U.S. non-voting Representative Baltasar Corrada del Río, obtained a limited-exception since no U.S. cruise ships that were Jones Act-eligible were participating in said market.


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