The homepage at infobonaire contains a notice that Continental Airlines in the US is or will be selling tickets for BE flights. The BE website makes no mention of this. Does anyone have more information on this?

Maybe those traveling the Aruba route would then find it easier to make the 3:30PM BE flight to Bonaire. I would guess that having a ticket would enable one to go straight to checkin, bypassing the ticket line.

Could this be a preliminary step toward a codeshare from the USA?

I still can't find anything either.

The tourism board sent out the info on April 23rd. So maybe you could try contacting them in the USA to find out when this might be happening.
Tel: 1-800-BONAIRE (800-266-2473),
or (212) 956-5912
Fax: (212) 956-5913
email: usa@tourismbonaire.com

Or ask Continental direct.

This morning I called Continental Airlines and the agent told me that I could buy a BonairExel ticket as part of a Continental flight, but that they could not sell BonairExel only. I think one must call international reservations as this does not show up on the website. I also received an email from BE indicating that US purchase is available now.

Another online service-- www.flightreservations.com

shows what is apparently BE as an unknown airline when I put in Bonaire as the destination. I know nada about this online service--never heard of it until today. The site also shows Dutch Caribbean flights.

The other question is baggage transfer in Aruba. Some time ago I flew A¥A to Aruba, connecting there for Bonaire on ALM or Air Aruba. In both directions I had to collect my checked baggage and go to the next airline counter. A¥A wrote the ticket through but did not have an agreement for baggage transfer. Easier, then, in Curacao where there was a Transit Lounge and checked baggage was transferred between airlines.

If anyone needs a reservation on BE, I can call from here in Bonaire and make it..you do not pay until you check in so it's no trouble to me..

Linda,

I did call the US office of the Bonaire Tourism Board this morning and got the same response that the Continental agent gave me--that Continental will sell BE space as part of a Continental ticket only.

The schedule from Newark wasn't bad, leave EWR at 8:55am, arrive Aruba about 1:30pm. Then BE to Bonaire at 3:30pm.

I guess having a ticket would get one around 1/3 of the hassle in Aruba. The ticket line.

Jake tried to book Continental flights on-line at their website with no luck finding Bonaire at all. No press releases or additional info anyway so unless you are flying Continental all the way and can call them directly you are out of luck.

Try the website above. It had some flights including Continental, BE, and DC. I was looking re:a roundtrip from the US to Bonaire, but maybe it will work the other way around as well. I've not used the site, ran into it today. Continental may be one of the owners. At the bottom of the homepage there is an opportunity to click directly to Continental and 2 others. I too found nothing useful on Continental's site. The site to try is:

www.flightreservations.com

OOPS, bad link, sorry. It should be:

http://flightreservationsonline.com/c/

I happened on it by making up what I thought might be Continental's url. I typed into the browser, www.continentalairlines.com
and the flight.......etc. came up.

I did just try the site using Bonaire as a starting point for a rt to Newark, no problem.