EZ-Air files court case against Winair flights
PHILIPSBURG — Dutch news site Koninkrijksrelaties.nu reports that the Bonaire-based airline company EZ-Air does not want Winair to transport passengers between the ABC islands.
According to a petition filed by the airline company’s legal representative Arndt van Hoof of Soliana Bonapart & Aardenburg, Winair only has a permit to fly from St. Maarten to Curacao, Aruba and Bonaire and not between the islands.
According to Koninkrijksrelaties.nu this is the reason for the lawsuit. However, insiders claim that EZ-Air has issues with the unscheduled flights Winair operates between the ABC islands with the ATR-47 aircraft owned by Air Antilles. Basically, the airline company believes Winair is cherry-picking on their routes. EZ-Air operates scheduled flights between the ABC-islands of Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao.
According to aviation experts, Winair can operate insular scheduled and unscheduled flights between the islands of Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao as long as they have the required permits from the relevant civil aviation authorities on Curacao, Aruba and The Netherlands. Forbidding Winair to fly between Bonaire and Curacao and Aruba is tantamount to forbidding Winair to fly between Saba and St. Eustatius. Therefore, Winair can continue flying on these routes, concluded a civil aviation expert consulted by StMaartenNews.com.
For Kingdom-based carriers such as Winair, KLM, Aruba Airlines, EZ-Air, Divi Divi Air, etc., to operate insular flights, an air transport agreement determines how they can fly. For this reason, KLM do not sell tickets on the flights they operate between St. Maarten and Curacao.
Up until recently, Winair operated flights between Bonaire and St. Eustatius, a trial effort subsidized by the Dutch government to stimulate travel between the BES-islands of Bonaire, St. Eustatius and Saba. EZ-Air is now looking to operate the Bonaire-St. Eustatius route with a Beech 1900 aircraft.
Winair is partly owned by the government of St. Maarten as a majority shareholder and by the government of The Netherlands as a minority shareholder. EZ-Air was established on Bonaire by founder Rene WInkel and received funding in 2018 from the Bonaire-based Pension Fund Caribbean Netherlands (PCN).
In a recent press release Winair announced that the company managed to post a USD850K profit for 2018. According to sources close to the company, Winair is well on its way to being able to finally pay out dividends to its shareholders.
Photo caption: Winair TwinOtter parked at Saba Airport on Monday, October 8, 2018, ready for departure from the newly renovated runway. File photo by Tim van Dijk.
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