Hi Everybody,

I've been contacted by the folks at Dutch Eagle Express (Bonaire Exel) and they would like me to interview with them for a pilot position. I'm trying to research them and not much is out there on the internet with these guys. I know they're being started by KLM-Exel and plan to have two ATRs and two ERJs, but I'm looking for what their plans are to try and determine if it's worth pursuing. Are they even operating yet?

Any info will be greatly apreciated!

Thanks.

Alex,
They didn't begin operating yet. They still need to finish with some paperworks to finally complete the permission. I ask the flight dep't and they told me that the permission will be all set by this week. Let's hope, because this is taking way to long. Their destinations initially will be Aruba, St.Maarten, Curacao and Caracas with a focus on Miami after(I hope).
Succes with the interview.

I would welcome some info too. Have been in the travel industry since 87 and would welcome the opportunity to learn about any ground reservation services needed. Eddie, any contact info please?

Annie

Each morning when I get up and check BT, I hope to read "BonaireExel made its first flight yesterday".... They have been getting their final papers "this week" for the last 3 months. Hopefully, Ed's report above is accurate and the maiden flights will begin. I was in Bonaire for the arrival of the first ATR. It's not making money sitting on the ground.

I need to make reservations to Bonaire for September and Xmas but am holding out for the BE Aruba/Bon connection.

The rumour is they start the 27th .... that is coming Friday.......just lets hope that Curacao makes no more problems and they have to go to court again against the Antillean government....

I too was checking daily and holding out--- but just couldn' take the chance-- booked AJ late last week for Thanksgiving and Feb.... I do look forward to more choices and the possibility of lower fares...

Faith and I are considering a visit in August. I too am waiting to see if there's any movement on the BonairExel front before really looking into the booking situation. Given the KLM/Northwest cooperation, I'm hoping to be able to use frequent flier miles. Though I suppose that'll likely make more sense once there's a BonairExel flight from MIA.

Copied from Amigoe.com this morning 6/25

DEE operational in a few says

BONAIRE – Within a few days, the Airline Company Dutch Eagle Express, also known as BonairExel, should be able to start her operations from Bonaire. The Airline Company mentioned this in a press conference in the presence of the minister of Traffic and Transportation Herbert Domacassé and the manager of the Aviation Department, Mr. Francisco.

BonairExel has wound up the process for getting the Air Operation Certificate, but both Francisco as well as BonairExel are still non-committal regarding the exact date that they would start with their flights, but according to the manager of BonairExel, Raymundo Saleh and Francisco, it’s a matter of a few days.

Minister Domacassé pointed out that the Aviation Department had given all her assistance to the certification process and with this statement, he contradicted the allegations that the department would have delayed the granting of the permit. The reason for these allegations is because earlier, the Aviation Department had refused to give positive advice about the economic permit for the new Airline Company. They didn’t get that permit until the company had taken the Aviation Departments and the National Government to court and won the case.

Susan -

Thank you for the posting.

Are we to understand that BonaireExel has received total clearance to fly? Is is correct that there are no regulatory road blocks left and that the actual launch of operations is totally and completely within the control of BonaireExel?

You know many are keenly interested in this issue.

Thank you.

Charles Poteet
Dallas

Todays update on Bonaire Exel - or Back to the usual... Still nothing solid yet. Copied from amigoe.com (translated to English on line)

Opposition casts doubts on start up of BonairExel

BONAIRE – PDB-leader Jopie Abraham is not very happy with the way they deal with the start up of BonairExel. According to him, the press conference that was called earlier this week by BonairExel’s management didn’t provide any new news. He casts doubts on the way Ramoncito Booi, who is the leader of UPB, deals with the interests of Bonaire. Abraham says that Booi uses community money in an irresponsible manner when it comes to prestigious investment projects like the expansion of the airport and BonairExel.

He continues saying not to understand why constantly there is another start up date for the Bonerian Airline Company. First it was going to be in October of 2002, then May 2003 and fact is that the company has never made one flight. Abraham does not understand why they had to call a press conference this time without having given any real information.

“There is no actual date for the first flight, nobody knows where to make reservations, what the destinations and frequencies are”, said Abraham. He understands that certain information might be considered confidential, but he thinks that the population should get some clarity about what they can expect from BonairExel.

That last statement should be seen with political eyes.... the red party from Jopie Abraham just lost the elections in May, the red party has now 1 seat less in the island parlament. The yellow party lost the only seat they had... and both parties before the elections created a number of smaller and larger difficulties over the airport and the airlines, which was punished by the voters. And certainlz Jopi should know, that without a permit from the Central Government, BE can not start flying and his opponent R.Booi has no or little influence on it

Not only that, but part of what he says is BS, and he knows it. BE can't make reservations without knowing when they can offer service. Plus, the destinations and frequency are known already, although not public knowledge... and if I know that, then certainly Jopi does too.

Marc and Briqitte,

Please explain more of the political issues to the rest of us. What benefit can either party gain by stopping the airline? I am not sure who is the bad guy and who is the good guy.

I've tried to follow the threads. Does BE have all the permits? Some postings seem to say they have all the permits...if this is the case, what is holding up BE now? This whole fiasco is ludicrous...even our crooked politicians (they are all crooks) don't bite off their noses...they are smart enough to recognize the will of the people and usually move in the direction to make it look like it is their idea.

Is Jopi the bad guy? Does he still have some connection to hold up the deal and is willing to do it to prove he has some power? Sounds like they need to build a new addition to the jail and start filling it with politicians.

Hi Gregg,

Politicians here are sometimes very childish. But I'm not sure if I should leave in the 'here' and 'sometimes', but anyway...

Jopi Abraham is from the red party and has worked in the past to get Bonaire a Bonairean airline, when his party was in power. He claims that he was there at the beginning of the start up of a Bonairean airline. That might not have been BonairExel itself, but *a* Bonairean airline. When the red party was not governing anymore, all the red party's plans were thrown out of the window and started anew or in a different way.

Mr. Ramoncito Booi (Monchi) is from the green party and he is in power now, and form next week on, his party will be having full power, with the majority of seats in the local government. Monchi claims that Jopi was working against the Bonairean airline because of certain (sometimes valid) questions the red party posed when Monchi was trying to get BonairExel up and running.

BonairExel is for a great part owned by a businessman with quite some money. And Jopi has called Monchi a sort of criminal because Monchi received money from that businessman. Now Monchi is mad at Jopi and he and his party refuse to come to the local government's meetings (where the red party can ask questions to the green party) unless Jopi apologizes. So, the meetings are called for nothing, because the green party boycots them. To my honest opinion, that is not something I call 'democratic conduct'. Jopi is no saint either, but I have not found a real 'good' guy in these parties anyway.

Meanwhile Monchi has tried to get BonairExel to fly, but still hasn't succeeded (apart from the 'circus flight' right before the elections).
BE still needs one permit, the AOC. The other permits are in order.

The will not give a date. One says the 'maiden flight' will be tommorrow, some people are talking about July already. Fact is that they want to start flying to Aruba, Curacao and St. Maarten. Miami is still a question mark because of the Embrear jet that can *reach* Miami from Bonaire, but then you have just about said it all. Maybe with less seats in the jet, it would get safer.
Caracas is also a destination that everybody here wants BE to fly to. But they are thinking about Coro (why I don't know) and they are not sure yet, because of the political situation in Venezuela.

I do believe that the giving out of the permits have been delayed ALSO because of the use of unknown aircrafts by BE (to the central goverment unknown, that is). It's not only politics holding back those permits. I have come to believe it's safety as well. And then I think: better be safe than sorry.

Some comments to Kittys political explanations

- that Bonaire Airline question plays already much longer than the last time that Jopi was in power... only because any of these guys says something does not make it true... just another political game, counting on the short memory of the people...... when he was in power, there was a group of Bonaire business people who wanted to start one.... the Bonairean person with the business permit was more than willing to just keep a small share of the company.... but Jopi cut the deal short, because for him it had to be a " real Bonairean" airline, means only Antillean owners.... so nothing happend . Personally I can not see what plans of any value he had, because I can't see "real Bonaireans" starting any airline .... I guess that is one of the reasons he does not like BE now, because big share holder is now as a fact a Dutch guy.... but even before that, there was quite a list of "plans" to get started and never anything happend

- even Jopi does not claims that Ramoncito "received" money, there is always talk about a "loan" and he claims there is a paper about that loan

- Jopi and Nochi (the leader of the yellow party) before the election told around at their nightly hang outs, that their first goal would be to stop the KLM flights.... one can wonder how much that played a role in losing the elections. Most of the local population knows very well Bonaire needs tourists to provide jobs

- Ramoncito has not succeded ??? says Jopi.... but Jopi is the first one who should know that it is not Ramoncito who gives the permits... I find that a rather cheap political comment as the one that there is no reservation office (there is already a comment from Marc on this subject)

- the permits may have been delayed for some technical reasons, but the biggest part certainly is the unwillingness of Curacao, they did everything to stop it. The court case in January, which the central government lost, and the hard comments of the judge, makes that rather clear. And that KLM started flying more often to Bonaire did not help.....
Think back in history (end 70th - beginning 80th)... Aruba wanted to be independent... biggest reason : Problems with the central government to get landing rights for mostly big established US Airlines. The Netherlands finally accepted the Status Aparte and Aruba bloomed and the independance idea died....

- the central government played the same game with Royal Aruba... like now with BE, there are a number of pilots, stewardesses etc to be paid for a big number of months, but there is no income... how many businesses can survive that ?????

Still no news about when the first plane of Bonairexel will take-off there on the sunny island of the Caribbean, I can tell u all that over here in Holland and in Europe people are admiring the second ATR-42 of Bonairexel everyday on routes of the KLM-Exel. This plane will be ferry-flight to Bonaire as soon as the operations start at the Flamingo Airport. Here is a shot taken of the Bonairexel second ATR(still PH-XLM).

Thank you to all who have taken so much time to try to explain to those of us off-island the situation(s)with BonaireExel.

I'm not sure my understanding is any better, but I think that is exactly the point: the more you know about the situation, the less you understand it.

Charles Poteet
Dallas

You got that right, Charles! or actually:

So the big question is how much longer will it be before Bonaire petitions for the same status as Aruba has? It seems quite clear the central government on Curacao does nothing useful for Bonaire.

The politicians have done their best to keep Bonaire a technological backwater, and suppress development.

"The politicians have done their best to keep Bonaire a technological backwater, and suppress development."

Im glad. Its still cool.

Hello everybody,

The BonairExel discussion will continue, I' m afraid. As you know BonairExel is a KLM -cover and instrument. People on the Hato airport are convinced that BonairExel is there to make a hard competition to the flag carrier DCA. KLM and DCA have big business problems to eachother. Local Bonarian businesspeople (Booi/Sandmann [REDACTED]) own the BonairExel planes and made a deal with KLM. That is really a problem for flagcarrier DCA and the Antillian Gouvernment. They 'll lose money ([REDACTED]) and they don't like that. So DCA has a big problem with this BonairExel story. And because the Antillian Gouvernement on Curacao is DCA's biggest shareholder, they will do everything to boycot BonairExel to fly. Flagcarrier protection, criminal behaviour, and no open sky policy. Welcome to Bonaire (and Curacao of course). Thank you for listening, and have nice dreams (about BonairExel).

[The above message has been redacted (i.e. had portions removed) in line with BonaireTalk's policy prohibiting anonymous libelous/slanderous unsubstantiated statements being posted on BonaireTalk. We have opted to redact instead of delete because a majority of the message is non-libelous, and does provide a particular perspective on the BonairExel matter. The poster's account has been closed, and an e-mail has been sent to him/her to ask him/her to rejoin the conversation under his/her own name instead of an anonymous alias.

The Moderators]

Just slightly wrong there.... ALM was owned by the Antillean (Central) Government, the DCA is owned now by the Island of Curacao - Doesn't Change Anything...... they will still try to keep the thump on Bonaire.... the planes have with big letter "Bridge to Curacao" .... so not to Bonaire of course, they fly when it suits them.....
For the moment there are just several members of the Curacao parlament in prison or under investigation, none for the moment on Bonaire

KnowOne, first of all let me say it's pretty lame to post under an anonymous name... or are you afraid of "revenge" by our Great Leader (great in the litteral sense of the word... Booi is one of the tallest guys on the island ).
Secondly, your perspective is overly paranoid. Do you really think KLM is worried about DCA? That's like the elephant being scared of the mouse... it's only true in fiction. KLM could blow DCA out of the water (or sky, in this case) tomorrow, if it wished to do so. In a pricing/competition fight, KLM would have the longest breath by far.
BE makes perfect sense for the KLM from a business standpoint. They can use it to connect regional flights to their South America flights making a stop here; this greatly expands their offerings to the European market.

Jason,

While it may seem on the surface that keeping the island a technological backwater and limiting development is a plus, I have to disagree. You may arrive at these views as a tourist to the island, enjoying it as a quaint place to visit. Keep in mind this place has to sustain a population for it to be possible for you to visit.

With job opportunities limited, many are leaving for Holland or other destinations in the Netherlands territories or beyond. Crime rates are interrelated with the well being of a populace and the health of the economy. When folks are upbeat, well paid and happy, crime rates tend to be lower.

Would it be so bad to have enough Internet bandwidth to have a software development center on the island? Or a world-class data center? There can be tax and lifestyle advantages to locating such businesses on an island nation. Certainly there are those who wouldn't mind living and working on an island where an afternoon or evening trip out into the back yard involves scuba tanks, and an escape from cell phones for an hour.

Raising the standard of living for the permanent residents of the island would improve the island for both residents and tourists. This need not damage the character of the place.

Dear Marc,

Booi maybe a smal guy on the Island, but even you don't know what he's up to, together with mr. Sandmann. If you think my reaction is slightly paranoid, than that's your own point of vue.

You'll know that DCA is ruled by the Gouverment. That means that there is allways money to survive. Just remember the way they changed ALM into DCA and how many investors lost there money. In that time KLM had the opportunity to blow the ALM/DCA away. But they dind't. Question why not ? DCA is the flagcarrier and therefor one of the most important companies in the aerea. Lots of people earn there money, directly or because there bursiness is related to the extension of DCA. The Gouverment, till now, defenses DCA like hell. It 's not that KLM is not powerfull enough to beat DCA, but the policy behind is making it not possible for KLM to get her monopoly on these routes.

Yesterday an article mentioned that KLM must cancel 12 flights to Bonaire because of financial reasons. What do you think are the consquences for BE ? They'll lose a lot of passengers and therefor money, to start up and to continue their company. Believe me, KLM doesn't care about BE, it is/was just a possibillity to compete DCA. But now it is not nessecary anymore. KLM is now flying again by Aruba/St.Maarten and as you know they orderd already there 777's. So in the future they don't have to find a solution for the inter insulair air traffic. They'll fligh directly to ABC destination, and they'll not need a fuelstop anymore to fligh to South-America.

So KLM says byebye to BE and the competition with DCA will continue, but more on the essential lines, to Amsterdam and Miami.

BE is far away in flying. Even there licence to fly is not o.k. They now try to buy themselves in to Avia Air from Aruba, because their own license is frustrated by the
Island Gouvernement. (DCA protection). So in the meantime just look and book by the excisting companies. You know them very well I think.

I'll hope still that there will come a solution to the travellingproblem between the Islands, but as you now see it's not only a commercial way of thinking, here you can almost not come to a businesssolution, without Gouvernemental cont(r)acts. So it's more a political issue.

I think the above message refers to this article from Amigoe (www.amigoe.com - on the English version of the site right now):

Summer schedule changes affects Bonaire considerably

BONAIRE – KLM seems to have canceled a lot of her flights to the Latin-American destinations Peru and Ecuador. From September 1st till October 24th, 2003, KLM will no longer fly from Amsterdam to Lima (Peru) v.v. on Thursdays and Fridays. The flights from Amsterdam and Guayaquil and Quito (Ecuador) will be canceled for the Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays during same period as mentioned above.

This KLM decision means an important blow for Bonaire that has invested a lot of money in expanding their airport. Less KLM flights automatically means less revenue for the airport. It also means fewer direct flights between Amsterdam and Bonaire, what could have an impact on the European tourists coming to Bonaire. To what extent the consequences would be for BonairExel is not known. The new Bonerian Airline Company was supposed to be the feeder for the KLM flights.

Fewer KLM flights could lead to considerably lower passengers that would use BonairExel.

KLM has informed the Customs Department in Bonaire via an internal memo about their decision to cancel some of the Peru and Ecuador flights, but officially, nobody knows yet what the reasons are.

However, it is not a secret that the KLM is going through difficult times. The September 11th terrorist attacks and the SARS-epidemic made it necessary for KLM to drastically take economic measures. On top of that, there is this problem where the passengers from Peru and Ecuador are trying to enter Europe, in this case Spain, without the required documents.

Hi Again,

I can't thank everyone enough for the info that has been provided on Bonair Exel. I didn't realize it would be such a hot topic of discussion.

In my brief contacts with BE, they have informed me that they hope to have their certificate on or about July 4. They also hope to begin operations by the middle of the month. Like anything in aviation, not just Bonair Exel, belive it when you see it.

I've been playing phone tag with their Director of Flight Operations, so I'm probably going to find out more what is going on and when or if I should plan to travel down there.

Again everybody, many thanks.

Alex

First of all let me say that I doubt whether the reduced number of flights will greatly impact the number of people coming to Bonaire from Europe. It still leaves sufficient seats to carry them, although it might be a bit more difficult to get cheap seats.
Secondly, about the 777... It could skip Bonaire en route to South America technically, but apparantly KLM is getting a very good deal on cheap kerosine here; so it might be more economical for them to still make the stop here.

Marc I think that the KLM will not put their 777's on the Antillean and Latin American Route yet. The 777's will be mostly used on their Asian Routes and into JFK and San Francisco. In the near future it would be likely that the triple's will be put on service to the Caribbean and Latin America as they face-out the MD-11's. The main problem for Bonaire is that there is not a big market to put straight pax flights into Bonaire, so let's hope that the Flamingo Airport can be used for many years more as a hub for the KLM in the Caribbean.

Hi,

Does anybody know if BE got their operating certificate today?

Thanks.

Alex

This week's Bonaire Reporter says no, that BE is still tied up in Curacao red tape but has some hope of getting the ok by the end of July.

In the words of an old saying, 'don't hang by your thumbs waiting'. Unfortunately.

It also reports that DCA has stopped four 'local' travel agents from selling tickets for 'Air Holland' at prices competitive to DCA, apparently flights to an from Holland.

I'll say they're competitive... almost half price! No wonder DCA is up in arms about it.

Amigoe reported that according to sources, the paperwork for the ATR is okay, but not yet for the Embrear. They asked the legitimate question of: if this is the case, why not start flying with the ATR?

I don't understand the difficulty with the Embrear.... last rumour I heard is that Curacao has not enough knowledge of these planes... but a few days ago there was an article in the news paper (Extra?? Amigoe??) about WinAir from St.Maarten and their Embrears .... is Curacao not also responsable for which planes WinAir is using???

BonairExel's latest communicated 'flying date' is 'end of July'...

Maybe the whole Embrear thing is because they want to fly from Bonaire to Miami with those Embrears and these planes just barely make it that far if too heavy...

I don't know... What I *do* know is: the BonairExel planes are still *not* flying...

Hard t believe that the new management at BE would allow the question of the Embrear flying to MIA keep the ATR's from providing inter island service. There is way too much money sitting on the ground to allow that to happen. There must be something else that they are not sharing or simply trying to play the political game with CUR.