And here's an article about this from today's The Daily Herald (http://www.thedailyherald.com):
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Winair Questions Air ALM Deal with American Eagle
PHILIPSBURG—Winair Chairman Mike Ferrier was notably agitated when he learned of news that Air ALM and American Eagle had signed a wet lease agreement, allowing the latter to service the Curaçao-Bonaire, Curaçao-Aruba routes.
"Not only have they done exactly what they don’t want Winair to do, they also clearly indicate that aviation circles in Curaçao don’t have any good intentions with Winair. Why didn’t they approach Winair to conduct those flights?" Ferrier told The Daily Herald Sunday evening.
The announcement that American Eagle had started the service came after Transport and Communication Minister Magda Rafael had said Winair had the right to service all routes within the Netherlands Antilles. "Internal flights are reserved for our own airlines, so Winair has the 'economic' permit to fly. But there are questions about the wet lease under which Winair wants to execute the flights," she said.
According to her, members of the Council of Ministers did not agree on the terms of the wet lease arrangement, for instance concerning cabin personnel, maintenance and catering.
Ferrier questioned Rafael's knowledge of aviation issues. "I don’t understand what she understands under the term wet lease," he said. He explained that Winair is planning to lease an aircraft — most likely from Guadeloupe-based Air Caraïbes - complete with pilots, crew and mechanics.
"Whether we fly it empty or full, we owe the company one price. It’s up to us to fill it. I think in Curaçao they think that we will have a foreign company conducting the flights and paying us a commission for doing it under Winair rights," Ferrier said.
Then he asked why "Curaçao" had so many questions concerning the wet lease and then had allowed Air ALM to do exactly that what it was questioning. American Eagle started flying the Curaçao-Bonaire, Curaçao-Aruba routes on Sunday, under a one-month wet lease arrangement. "Are they maybe doing exactly what they are afraid that we want to do?" the Chairman asked.
He said it was clear that Minister Rafael didn’t care how Air ALM performed. "It’s okay for Air ALM, but when it comes to Winair we are scrutinized," he said, questioning why Winair —
"the only remaining national airline" — had not been considered.
"American Eagle cannot make money on the Bonaire route with an ATR. Unless they were tempted with double prices. And how will ALM be able to pay them, while honouring the same ticket rates it now has on that route?" said Ferrier.
He said Winair had made a promise to provide a service to Bonaire and still wanted to do it. "We have smaller aircraft, less comfortable than an ATR, but we will do it at the same price, without asking subsidy for every flight," Ferrier said.
According to Ferrier, Winair will place two Twin Otters in Curaçao to start conducting the Bonaire service the moment the minister puts in writing the permission she said Winair had to fly all national routes.
"But we also need the support from the Bonaire people, in their time of need. Otherwise we’ll make our deduction and pull out and come back to do what we make our money with — servicing the Windward Islands," he said.
Newspaper reports from Curaçao indeed suggest that Bonaire would rather have a bigger aircraft than a Twin Otter on the Curaçao-Bonaire route. Rafael was quoted as saying in the Amigoe newspaper that there could be some practical obstacles in Winair’s having to build a hangar at Hato.
"Bonaire’s preference for a bigger aircraft is answered with the arrangement with American Eagle. But Winair would still be a good backup," she said.
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And here's the Editorial from The Daily Herald on the topic...
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Wet Lease
Commissioner Mike Ferrier is not happy with the fact that Air ALM has reached a "wet lease" agreement with American Eagle to execute flights to Bonaire and Aruba for a month, while ALM addresses its plane shortage problem. If indeed Winair was never approached, the commissioner has a point. The argument that Bonaire would rather have bigger aircraft than Winair’s Twin Otters is only partially acceptable. After all, ALM is supposed to operate as a commercial company. especially after costing the Antillean tax payer so much money for so many years, the airline could have at least compared prices and considered an airline from the same country and owned by the same Central Government.
One can hardly escape the impression that the request of Winair to start flying to Curaçao alongside ALM or its successor Dutch Caribbean Express is the real reason. And that is a pity. The management of ALM must understand that if the Windward Islands are to accept Curaçao’s takeover of a federally owned airline, then allowing Winair, as the remaining "national airline," to fly to Curaçao is the least the Central Government can do, especially considering the recent on-time performance of ALM and its fleet problems.
It will be interesting to see what happens in the future. Winair plans to fly to Bonaire anyway, as soon as it gets official permission. American Eagle will start regular scheduled flights to Bonaire in November and has asked permission to transport passengers between Curaçao and Bonaire as well as Aruba and Bonaire.
There is every indication that both the Antillean and Aruban Governments will go along with this. The question then becomes whether there are really any protected routes left within the Antilles. Under these circumstances authorities can no longer justify restricting Winair from flying to Curaçao by excluding the kind of wet leases with other airlines it has planned.
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Whew!
My commentary/overview of the situation:
While it appears airlines are fighting for Bonaire access, much of it is politics, especially where Air ALM and Winair are involved. The issue at stake here, hinted at above, are "protected routes", under a principle known as cabotage, where a country has the exclusive right to flight routes within that country. Many of Bonaire's problems stem from the fact that Air ALM jealously guarded (and still guards) any local inter-island traffic involving Bonaire, and the Curacao based minister of transport has even had the gall to say that Aruba-Bonaire is a protected route, exclusive for Air ALM. However, with ALM becoming Dutch Caribbean Express, and also now being owned by Curacao itself instead of the central government of the Netherlands Antilles, there's not much legal basis for Air ALM being able to restrict local access to Bonaire, but Curacao politicians keep hoping that no one will fight ALM/DCE's claim. While Winair's offer to support Bonaire is on the surface generous, the scary thing is as national carrier, they legally have the exclusive right to inter-island Bonaire traffic, but politics prevent them from exercising this right (which is a good thing for Bonaire, because we don't want restrictions on which air lines we can work with to fly locally).
It's rumored that in November American Eagle will start flying Curacao/Bonaire/Aruba under its own name, and I hope that's certainly the case, but I don't know what concessions, if any, had to be made to appease the greedy politicians in Curacao and/or ALM/DCE in order to get those routes.
I would hope that competition would decrease prices, which currently stand at around US$120 from a Bonaire/Curacao roundtrip (it was about $65 when we moved to Bonaire four years ago - almost a 100% increase, because there was no alternative...)
In the short term, the new ALM/American Eagle deal is great in that it provides desperately needed flights between Bonaire and Curacao (and Aruba - a direct non-stop to Aruba is something we haven't seen in a while on Bonaire).
In the long term, let's see what happens...
Jake (getting off my soap box) |
By alan markus on Monday, September 10, 2001 - 10:46 am: 
