Saturday’s front page headline “KLM announces direct flights to St. Maarten” may have seemed a bit odd at first glance. After all, the Royal Dutch Airline has been coming to Princess Juliana
International Airport SXM from Amsterdam two to three times per week it seems like forever.
The difference is that those flights were combined with ones to the ABC islands, usually Curaçao, which for visitors from the Netherlands to “The Friendly Island” meant extra travel time of four hours and 20 minutes on the way back via Hato Airport.
The latter was not exactly a great selling point in trying to promote the destination among Dutch travellers. One of the reasons given in the past was that the Boeing aircraft KLM used on the route could not lift off past Sentry Hill with enough fuel for a non-stop return leg to Schiphol.
The carrier employed other planes at a certain moment to make it possible, but this didn’t last too long, presumably due to lack of demand. Of course, there’s always Air France via Paris, but it may well have been the added competition of TUI that tipped KLM’s hand now.
Whatever the motive, it spells good news for the local hospitality industry and efforts to get more out of the European market. Together with Belgian JetAir offering TUI packages, this appears to confirm that there is growing interest in the Netherlands for vacationing in St. Maarten.
