The recent agreement signed between St. Maarten Tourism Bureau (STB) and Winair (see Tuesday newspaper) is a step in the right direction. The latter has greatly expanded its route network to become a significant player in Caribbean aviation.
Combining such with destination promotion can help bring visitors from other islands. Especially now that Americans are apparently going on vacation abroad less, due mainly to socioeconomic uncertainty over policies of the current US administration, getting more out of secondary markets should indeed be a priority.
It will probably also contribute to strengthening the hub function of Princess Juliana International Airport (PJIA). The importance of such was underscored during an interview with the operational company PJIAE’s new CEO Michael Cleaver published in today’s edition.
“When I look around the region – at airports in places like Anguilla, St. Kitts, Dominica, and Tortola – I see that they’ve made significant investments to modernise and expand their airports. St. Maarten needs to catch up and ensure we’re providing a better experience for our passengers,” he said.
However, authorities from St. Barths have formally complained about how transit passengers were being treated and the CEO called these concerns reasonable. He acknowledged that the portal they must pass through is too small to handle the volume, which results in long queues and lengthy processing times.
“We recognise the validity of these issues and have submitted improvement plans to the St. Maarten Civil Aviation Authority streamlining the processes and reducing customer impediments. For passengers arriving in St. Maarten as their final destination from New York, Miami or Atlanta – we’ve already made significant strides. We have 10 PJIAE ambassadors stationed at the electronic immigration gates assisting customers, reducing processing times and the overall arrival experience.
“That said, the transit passenger experience still needs our attention. To address this, once approved we are adding an additional baggage screening machine to ease congestion at the transit gate.” according to Cleaver.
The message seems clear: STB, Winair as well as PJIA are serious about their roles in regional travel.
