For the sake of everyone and most of all themselves, one would hope for cool heads to prevail among staff of Princess Juliana International Airport (PJIA). Management of the operating company PJIAE in a letter urged personnel (see related story) not to participate in rumoured protest action today, Wednesday.
There was talk of unpaid salaries and bonuses going back as far 2017, which if true is obviously regrettable. However, the airport has been pretty much in shambles since then, while the pandemic caused many people to lose 20 per cent or more – and in some cases all – of their income already for over a year.
With a steep decline in passengers, the airport obviously felt the related socio-economic crisis first-hand and ended up with a precarious cashflow problem. Now that travel appears to be on the increase and money can finally be made again is certainly not the time to disrupt operations.
The recovery of the entire island to a great extent depends on the return of airlines and anything that could affect flights should be strongly discouraged. There is also the aviation safety aspect and reputation of SXM as reliable destination partner to consider.
In addition, long-awaited reconstruction of the damaged facility is finally set to begin in earnest. Whatever one may think about the financing from the Dutch-sponsored Trust Fund and the European Investment Bank (EIB) as well as the role of Royal Schiphol Group, switching to any alternative even when feasible would almost surely cause – at this point unacceptable – further delays.
Nevertheless, the latter is exactly what part of the holding company PJIAH appears to have insistently been trying to do. Workers and their labour unions must be careful not to end up in the middle of a fight between that group and particularly employer PJIAE’s CEO Brian Mingo.
This cannot be about one person and it is therefore good that all three management members signed the letter to personnel. Ultimately the country’s main gateway belongs to its people and government as their shareholder representative has clearly stated wanting to continue the project in its current form.
There is a great and pressing need to just get the job done.
