Great Bay (DCOMM):--- Director of the Sint Maarten Tourist Bureau May-Ling Chun described her recent meeting with KLM Executives in Holland as positive.
Ming-Ling Chun headed a delegation to Holland recently which met with several airlines including KLM. The delegation informed KLM that their fares to Sint Maarten are much higher than to most destinations in the Caribbean, Suriname and even as far South as Brazil.
It was also pointed out to KLM that there is now a tendency to fly via the United States to Sint Maarten because it's less expensive. KLM addressed the matter by stating that they are well aware of the situation and the reason for the high fares is due to the lack of competition on the Sint Maarten route.
KLM says they understand that this makes the situation to promote the destination in Europe more difficult, and added that KLM would be interested in looking into joint promotional opportunities to assist in promoting the route.
The Sint Maarten delegation also asked to look into the possibility of delaying the departure time from Amsterdam to Sint Maarten in order to facilitate passengers being able to connect to other flights from other European cities to the island who are travelling on the same day. At the moment KLM flights depart Amsterdam minutes before 9:00am.