Moderators: richierich, ua900, PanAm_DC10, hOMSaR
guyanam wrote:The Insel deal with AV fell through. So what future does Insel have? Will they ever be anything other than connecting the Dutch Caribbean?
303dk wrote:Silver has purchased Seaborne. Any thoughts?
gunnerman wrote:Winair to replace PAWA's MD-83 with Sunrise Airways's A320 as wet-lease operator. Currently, the MD-83 is used for CUR-PAP-SXM-CUR, but from 17 January the A320 will be twice-weekly PAP-SXM. The A320 has 12 seats in Business and 138 in Economy.
guyanam wrote:I think that folks are accustomed to those hours as unless one takes the early bird LIAT its hard to know when one will arrive. LI usually starts the day early, but its sometimes down hill after that. I am always surprised to see how many are on those "crack of dawn" flights in the Eastern Caribbean.
gunnerman wrote:The LI521 used to originate from ANU, now it's SKB. Routeing is SKB-ANU-BGI-OGL.
303dk wrote:The Curaçao Chronicle is reporting that all of PAWA’s operations have been suspended
guyanam wrote:Oh well. There goes the theory that some expound that the private sector is the panacea for Caribbean aviation. Insel now a de facto gov't carrier, having failed as a private one, and now PAWA is stranding people around the Caribbean. PAWA's financial challenges have been well known for quite a while as the Winair passengers who were stranded at PAP for several days will testify.
Eduardo Lim Yueng @limyueng
@CopaAirlines anuncia 3 nuevos destinos este 2018, Fortaleza y Salvador en Brasil, y Bridgetown en Barbados
baje427 wrote:According to the news here in BGI it will be a 2 times a week service operated by the E190 lets see if this route works.
yellowtail wrote:baje427 wrote:According to the news here in BGI it will be a 2 times a week service operated by the E190 lets see if this route works.
It should and it should build. at 2 X weekly it is not very attractive to business travellers. Going to SJO from BGI for example might still be better via MIA.
However once shoppers in BGI discover PTY.....they might give up MIA.
xdlx wrote:The only way Seaborne could resemble the shadow of Executive.... is to go beyond 12-16 frames and create a feedstock into SJU.
Brickell305 wrote:guyanam wrote:Oh well. There goes the theory that some expound that the private sector is the panacea for Caribbean aviation. Insel now a de facto gov't carrier, having failed as a private one, and now PAWA is stranding people around the Caribbean. PAWA's financial challenges have been well known for quite a while as the Winair passengers who were stranded at PAP for several days will testify.
I don't think the argument was ever made that private sector was automatically better. I think historically, the argument has been that political interference in state run/gov't owned airlines has been very damaging to those airlines. And I think most would agree that it has been. What should be happening in the region IMO is that the state run/gov't owned airlines should be run as if they were private entities where= commercial interests drive the decision making. rivate entities in the Caribbean don't have the capability to raise the required capital to run an airline long term and withstand what can be significant losses during down periods. That is why gov't ownership is necessary. However, the culture surrounding said entities must be revamped entirely.
303dk wrote:xdlx wrote:The only way Seaborne could resemble the shadow of Executive.... is to go beyond 12-16 frames and create a feedstock into SJU.
They also would need international to international visa-free connections. The airport has room to build it, but I don’t see it happening.
yellowtail wrote:baje427 wrote:According to the news here in BGI it will be a 2 times a week service operated by the E190 lets see if this route works.
It should and it should build. at 2 X weekly it is not very attractive to business travellers. Going to SJO from BGI for example might still be better via MIA.
However once shoppers in BGI discover PTY.....they might give up MIA.
guyanam wrote:Brickell305 wrote:guyanam wrote:Oh well. There goes the theory that some expound that the private sector is the panacea for Caribbean aviation. Insel now a de facto gov't carrier, having failed as a private one, and now PAWA is stranding people around the Caribbean. PAWA's financial challenges have been well known for quite a while as the Winair passengers who were stranded at PAP for several days will testify.
I don't think the argument was ever made that private sector was automatically better. I think historically, the argument has been that political interference in state run/gov't owned airlines has been very damaging to those airlines. And I think most would agree that it has been. What should be happening in the region IMO is that the state run/gov't owned airlines should be run as if they were private entities where= commercial interests drive the decision making. rivate entities in the Caribbean don't have the capability to raise the required capital to run an airline long term and withstand what can be significant losses during down periods. That is why gov't ownership is necessary. However, the culture surrounding said entities must be revamped entirely.
There were those who demanded that LI and BW should be privatized and that would solve their problems. Well we had Caribbean Star, BWIA and JM and they all failed as private carriers. Butch Stewart generated way more losses when he owned JM than we have seen in any other Caribbean carrier.
In fact I have said that Caribbean carriers should remain state owned, but should be managed as privately owned entities without government interference.
But it is clear that the expertise to manage airlines doesn't reside in the Caribbean's private sector. There is the additional challenge that foreigners moving into Caribbean space don't necessarily understand the particular challenges of Caribbean aviation. Redjet was an example of this. Many on this Caribbean Aviation forum predicted its demise as soon as it opened because its business model was ludicrously flawed.
guyanam wrote:yellowtail wrote:baje427 wrote:According to the news here in BGI it will be a 2 times a week service operated by the E190 lets see if this route works.
It should and it should build. at 2 X weekly it is not very attractive to business travellers. Going to SJO from BGI for example might still be better via MIA.
However once shoppers in BGI discover PTY.....they might give up MIA.
I think that it was said that AV wasn't doing too badly into BGI and that this ended only because of Venezuelan restrictions to flying over its air space. If that is the case CM should be OK. CM might even be seeing some BGI business using its POS route.
baje427 wrote:guyanam wrote:yellowtail wrote:I have also heard the AV route was not performing so poorly either but the extra 2 hours required to avoid Venezuelan airspace made rendered made it inviable. If the prices are competitive to make PTY a MIA shopping alternative then yes Bajans would give it a go but as it stands the fares from BGI to South Florida are very attractive. .
Brickell305 wrote:[I suspect when people say this, they usually mean they'd like to see a LI/BW w/o political interference w/o considering the financial impact of privatization. Few will recognize that the govt's are the only entity in the Caribbean both willing and able to withstand the potentially significant losses that these airlines generate. There may be some private entities that have the ability to sustain losses for prolonged periods but they are definitely not doing that willingly. The biggest problem that the region faces is that structurally, the ability to generate respectable profits runs almost completely counter to delivering the kind of service that people want. You could make profits as a small, niche carrier flying tiny turboprops to a handful of islands in one section of the region but that's not what the public at large generally wants from a regional carrier. They want one with the ability to fly them the length and breadth of the region with convenient frequencies which is a recipe for losses as there simply isn't sufficient traffic throughout the region to do that profitably consistently.
baje427 wrote:guyanam wrote:yellowtail wrote:
It should and it should build. at 2 X weekly it is not very attractive to business travellers. Going to SJO from BGI for example might still be better via MIA.
However once shoppers in BGI discover PTY.....they might give up MIA.
I think that it was said that AV wasn't doing too badly into BGI and that this ended only because of Venezuelan restrictions to flying over its air space. If that is the case CM should be OK. CM might even be seeing some BGI business using its POS route.
I have also heard the AV route was not performing so poorly either but the extra 2 hours required to avoid Venezuelan airspace made rendered made it inviable. If the prices are competitive to make PTY a MIA shopping alternative then yes Bajans would give it a go but as it stands the fares from BGI to South Florida are very attractive. .
yellowtail wrote:If the business plan for CM in BGI is only about getting tourists to BGI the route would never have been announced. This is about a mix of traffic with Business traffic as it’s backbone.
yellowtail wrote:If the business plan for CM in BGI is only about getting tourists to BGI the route would never have been announced. This is about a mix of traffic with Business traffic as it’s backbone.