The Caribbean island airport at Sint Maarten, popular for its low-flying aircraft over the neighboring beach, is slowly returning to normalcy following devastation from hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017, with more routes returning. However, a tricky financial situation is putting further pressure on operations.
The two hurricanes wiped out much of the infrastructure on the twin-nation island, with Princess Juliana International Airport (PJIA) seeing its terminal out of action for months and the airfield in disarray.
When flights tentatively resumed, passengers were forced to use tents as temporary arrivals and departures zones, and many of the airport’s regular airlines suspended flights for a number of months.
While the terminal building, which could handle the largest passenger jets, remains out of action the airport has rebounded somewhat with a good proportion of its pre-hurricane destination list flying once again.
Alongside regular operators Air France, American Airlines, Caribbean Airlines, Corsair, KLM and United Airlines, JetBlue has resumed service to Fort Lauderdale and New York over the past month.
Image credit: Princess Juliana International Airport
On March 14, Canadian carrier Sunwing became the latest to resume operations, with tourists receiving bags of goodies as a mark of appreciation by the island as they disembarked the aircraft.
Following the arrival, Tourism Minister Stuart Johnson said, "Our tourism product will evolve as it grows and our goal is to make it more sustainable. It will take some time, but the intention is to continue working to bring airlifts back to pre-Irma numbers and attract even more airlines."
Airport CEO Brian Mingo reported a few days earlier that the passenger terminal’s new three-layered roof will be completed in April, with traffic levels this year showing projected growth to 65 percent of pre-Irma levels in February.
However, on the back of such catastrophe the airport has been left in a fragile financial situation. The cost of repairing and rebuilding infrastructure like the terminal will cost the airport "over US$100 million" according to Mingo, with funding offers from the European Investment Bank and World Bank in the process of being secured.
Earlier this month the Dutch government agreed to send an immediate bridging loan of $5 million to the St. Maarten government to help PJIA avoid insolvency in the short term. This will be followed by an additional US$10 million loan in due course.
With these funds the airport will be able to continue operations which could, according to sources, have been suspended within a week otherwise.
In an official statement, Mingo commented: "What we need immediately is a $15 million bridge loan that has been allocated by the Netherlands, so that we can meet our immediate liquidity needs and support the cash shortfall, and then a final decision on financing to that. The works can then begin on the reconstruction plans within three weeks and start of construction by July 2019."
"If all goes as planned and urgent action is taken now, we will be celebrating the re-opening of our reconstructed airport terminal by Christmas 2020."
The addition of more routes and the passengers will also help the airport return to a sounder footing. Each seat sold includes a portion of the fare and departure tax, totaling around $40 allocated to the rebuilding works. With 65,000 extra seats provided by JetBlue’s new services alone, this should provide a significant help in returning to solvency.
