Honiara and is served by Honiara International Airport. Henderson Field, operated during the Solomon Islands campaign, was reopened in 1969 as the nation's largest airport. The airport has been improved to receive large aircraft. Solomon Airlines, the state owned airline, is based at Honiara. The seaport of Point Cruz is the main port of entry into Solomon Islands. Many international shipping companies operate as the port has facility to handle containers Passenger boats services operate from Honiara's main wharf at Point Cruz and many shipping companies provide these services. Notable operators are the MV "Pelican Express" and MV "Solomon Express", offering
Capital city prime economic, cultural, or intellectual centres of a nation or an empire are sometimes referred to as primate cities. Examples are Athens, Bangkok, Brussels, Buenos Aires, Copenhagen, Cairo, London, Mexico City, Paris, Seoul and Tokyo. News media will often use the name of a capital city as an alternative name for the country of which it is the capital or of the government that is seated there, as a form of metonymy. For example, "relations between Washington and London" refer to "relations between the United States and the United Kingdom". The word "capital" derives from the Latin "caput" (genitive "capitis"),