Philipsburg: --- Commissioner of Tourism Frans Richardson at a press conference shed some more light on the Westjet affair, which he was attacked for on Monday. The commissioner said the matter has his attention since he took office on June 8. Richardson said key members of his office was and continues to be instrumental in facilitating the ongoing process for obtaining the required permits and licenses to realize WestJet scheduled airlift service into St. Maarten.
Just recently, WestJet had been seeking additional information such as the required immigration forms to be completed for arriving passengers and other technical and operational requirements.
Richardson said his office was then informed that WestJet's request to Civil Aviation authorities is already being processed and one of the key issues is/was regulating the Bi-lateral Agreement between Canada and the Netherlands Antilles.
Subsequently they were advised that WestJet has received the CTA License authorizing WestJet to offer scheduled air service from Canada to Saint Maarten.
For clarification sake, West Jet began flying charter to St. Maarten since 2002 -- on behalf of Transat Tours Canada up until May 10, 2009 when they mutually and cordially terminated their contract. Since October 2006, West Jet had indicated that it is interested in providing scheduled airlift service to St. Maarten.
West Jet was handled by Menzies Aviation (both Ramp and Passenger handling) since 2002 up until June 30 2006.
In July 2006 when Menzies had to close its doors to passenger Handling, Juliana Airport Handlers won the concession to do passenger Handling at the Princess Juliana Airport again was given the contract of West Jet for Passenger Handling and Menzies continued to perform the Ramp handling for the Airline.
Apparently, former commissioner of tourism, Roy Mr. Marlin, was not aware of the aforementioned when he chose to make statements regarding West Jet at his press conference on Monday.
West Jet is not new to St. Maarten; the only thing new and of importance is that WestJet is a new SCHEDULED CARRIER; West Jet performed as a charter service yearly, except for the month of April, into St. Maarten, in the past. West Jet is then to become the first airline to provide scheduled airlift service out of Canada into St. Maarten.
The previous commissioner of tourism had also been looking at attracting additional airlift out of South America.
Richardson said they have been looking at Aserca Airlines – which would provide airlift out of South America.
He said he understood however that contrary to the impression created by the former commissioner of tourism, they are not providing scheduled airlift service to St. Maarten.
The former commissioner also failed to disclose how a commitment had been made by the previous Executive Council to the tune of some 500,000 U.S. dollars for the promotion of said flights.
A commitment that the former commissioner knew could not be honored – particularly since we are talking about charter flights executed once per month!
