DAE cancels St. Maarten flights until November 5
Filed under: Airline News, Press Releases, St. Maarten News
CURACAO/AIRPORT–The woes of Dutch Antilles Express (DAE) passengers have now turned into a Halloween nightmare. The airline has cancelled all its flights between St. Maarten and Curacao from yesterday until November 4. The first flight should be airborne on November 5.
Roy Mingo of airline agent Arrindell Aviation Services told The Daily Herald the airline had issued a bulletin Monday afternoon informing all travel agents and ticketing counters that one of its aircraft would be taken from Colombia to Mexico today for an engine change.
With DAE cancelling its flights many travellers wishing to move between St. Maarten and the ABC islands (Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao) had to resort to more expensive flights via Puerto Rico.
DAE’s ATR aircraft is undergoing its regular maintenance in Texas, which is taking longer than expected.
The airline has a fleet of five aircraft: three ATRs and two Fokker 100s. With these five aircraft, DAE carries out more than 210 flights per week. To guarantee punctuality, DAE fully deploys three aircraft and sometimes a fourth one, depending on the day, under normal circumstances. This means that two aircraft are on stand-by most of the time.
According to a press release from DAE, passengers who already have tickets or parts of tickets can get a refund, cash or a travel voucher. For those who accept a travel voucher, DAE will ‘throw in’ an additional 25 per cent, a refund of 125 per cent, for future travel.
Flights to and from Bogota, Colombia, and Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, have also been affected.
Last week’s solution of a chartered Laser aircraft from Venezuela was not possible this week because of maintenance work on that aircraft, explained DAE Managing Director Floris van Pallandt. Laser executed 42 flights for DAE, including some on the St. Maarten route. Passengers on the Sunday and Monday flights were transferred to Insel Air.
Van Pallandt stressed that aircraft were pieces of machinery that required maintenance and sometimes they broke down. This case, he added, was a typical example of “Murphy’s Law.” He reminded the public that, in the past two years, DAE had executed flights with a high rate of punctuality and with very few cancellations.
DAE apologised for the inconvenience and said it would do everything in its power to resume regular operations as soon as possible.
Source: The Daily Herald St. Maarten
Prison administrator released from custody
Female Pointe Blanche prison administrator E.E.R., who had been arrested on suspicion of having stolen money that belonged to inmates, was released on Thursday.
She had been in detention for a month following an investigation into the disappearance of almost NAF 200,000.
E.E.R.’s lawyer Remco Stomp told The Daily Herald on Friday that the Judge of Instruction had not seen any grounds to hold the woman in custody any longer, nor had he deemed it necessary to have her transferred to Curacao.
The woman had been detained in the police station for a month, during which period she could not take care of her two minor children.
Prosecutor Dikran Sarian had said last week that the woman would remain in the police cells until the end of the investigation, which he said should be wrapped up within a week. But according to the woman’s lawyer, no further investigation in her case had taken place.
According to Stomp, his client is not the main suspect in this case. “The one who has the final responsibility in this case is still on the loose,” Stomp said.
However, he added that his client’s release did not mean she was off the hook. She still will have to appear before a judge to stand trial. No court date has been set as yet.
Source: The Daily Herald St. Maarten
St. Maarten Coast Guard personnel take the oath
SIMPSON BAY–The Coast Guard personnel in St. Maarten were sworn in yesterday at the Coast Guard facility in Simpson Bay.
Home Affairs Minister Roland Duncan came especially to St. Maarten for the occasion. He will be returning to Curacao today.
The oath taking is part of the personnel becoming officially Central Government civil servants. Head of Personnel and Training Brigitte Boekhoudt explained that the oath taking was a logical follow up of the implementation of the new legal status for the Coast Guard, which was finalised earlier this year.
Deputy director of the Coast Guard for the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba Hans Schreuder too was present at the ceremony. He said the Coast Guard has gone through an impetus growth the past years.
The Coast Guard has received new material recently and the first Dash-8 airplane in Coast Guard colours is at the Coast Guard Air Station Hato in Curacao.
Schreuder said that St. Maarten will possibly be receiving a second helicopter as well to help in its patrolling duties.
Duncan before the oath taking ceremony stressed to the personnel what the oath they were about to take meant for their integrity as civil servants and the importance of their duties serving the people of the Netherlands Antilles.
Duncan also explained that, as the Netherlands Antilles is in the process of being dismantled, he understands that the Coast Guard personnel too have to be informed about their future legal status.
Source: The Daily Herald St. Maarten
A CHANNEL ISLANDS executive director will be passing on her skills to KPMG counterparts in the Caribbean later this month.
Elaine Monkhouse will spend a week in Curacao delivering a change-management course that she developed and piloted in Brussels last year.
The course will provide them with a well developed set of tools but what will bring it to life is the hands-on practical experience and my experiences of change management in an island context, she said.
Dr Monkhouse added that change management covers an extensive range of areas, from IT to the complex ones involved with a merger or acquisition.
The costs of getting it wrong are enormous and we see it so often and so it is essential that KPMG staff have the skills to be able to help their clients minimise the effect of change.
She said that change has been identified as a core skill for all the companys consultants.
KPMG Advisory is investing in the professionalism of its consultants on a global level to ensure that the advice we give and the tools we use are consistent, of a high quality and can be clearly recognised as being a KPMG discipline.
I am delighted to be able to hand over my experiences to my Caribbean colleagues, said Dr Monkhouse.
Online Casino For Sale
Filed under: Business and Economy, Entertainment and Sport, Internet and Technology
London-based Leisure And Gaming has announced that it is to seel one of its long established online casinos, AcropolisCasino.com, for a price of $500,000.
The AIM-listed company is one of the world’s largest betting and gaming companies and owns the operation through its subsidiary, Grouse Entertainment.
The online casino has a database of some 24,000 non-US cash players and, despite no recent attempts at marketing the site and a decline in net wins since 2006 levels, AcropolisCasino.com still generates an average of $100,000 per month in net win and $16,000 per month in EBIT since the beginning of the year. This is through returning players who like the established and recognised brand that also features natural search engine optimisation.
The online venue has been listed at eGamingBrokerage.com who revealed that Leisure And gaming are exploring the possibility of selling Grouse Entertainment as it is the legal entity that owns and operates the AcropolisCasino.com. Grouse holds a Curacao gaming license and owns its own fully depreciated equipment and uses Playtech casino software while outsourcing payment processing and customer services.
Insel Air Flight Cancelled
Filed under: Airline News, St. Maarten News, Travel and Tourism
AIRPORT–A tired little boy hoping to travel to Curacao with his parents and sister for a relaxing weekend had his expectations dashed twice by the grounding of Insel Airs only aircraft linking St. Maarten and Curacao.
His mother, who preferred to remain anonymous, said the family had been booked to travel to Curacao on Insel Air on Friday, but learned when they arrived at Princess Juliana International Airport (PJIA) that the flight had been cancelled and alternative arrangements would be forthcoming.
After struggling for some time, the family headed home and the mother tried to obtain an update on their trip. Their next airport trip was on Saturday and again they were told the flight was not coming in and to just wait for a call.
This call never came and the family, after spending most of their weekend at PJIA, had to settle for Sunday at home. My son, as little as he is, looked at me and said, Mommy this is the second time Insel Air cant take me to Curacao, the mother said.
These four passengers were not re-accommodated aboard the Dutch Antilles Express (DAE) outbound flight to Curacao on Friday, Saturday or Sunday.
Roy Mingo of Arrindell Aviation, the local DAE agent, told The Daily Herald all DAE passengers booked to leave St. Maarten or travel here had been taken care of, along with those from Insel Air who could be accommodated. There were all full flights on the three days, he said.
It is not certain how long Insel Airs lone aircraft will be out of service and how passengers already booked on the flights will be accommodated.
Source: The Daily Herald St. Maarten
Curacao and St. Maarten should use the constitutional change process to take the necessary steps towards more maturity
~ Judge Wit tells Curacao, St. Maarten ~
WILLEMSTAD–Former judge on the Common Court of Justice of the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba Bob Wit says Curacao and St. Maarten should use the constitutional change process to take the necessary steps towards more maturity, instead of remaining dependent on the Netherlands.
He made his comments during a lecture at University of the Netherlands Antilles in Curacao on the occasion of the establishment the Dutch Caribbean Human Rights Committee last Thursday.
Wit, appointed as judge on the Trinidad and Tobago-based Caribbean Court of Justice on June 1, 2005, said that in the negotiations for new constitutional structures, the Dutch, based on all that had gone wrong up to now, had been seeking to institutionalise some form of supervision on Antillean politicians as to their way of managing public finances, to avoid reoccurrence of the financial mess that had emerged.
Where they seem to go wrong is the way in which they apparently seek to establish that supervision, as they seem bent on taking that responsibility permanently out of our hands, Wit said in his lecture entitled Taking ownership of Human Rights towards a maturing Dutch Caribbean.
He said that, understandably, the approach of the islands had been to resist the measures of supervision as much as possible in an effort to give away as little autonomy as possible.
In Wits view, both approaches are to be deplored. Going back to the basics, we have to be mindful that this whole enterprise of constitutional restructuring should be aimed at furthering the right of self-determination for us, the Dutch Caribbean peoples.
He said that at the same time, the people should be mindful of the fact that this is not a right per se, but one that implies a duty for us to foster in a meaningful way the high ideals of democratic governance.
He said focusing only on the external outline of constitutional arrangements such as a separate status similar to that of Aruba, the islands would have achieved little because internally, and thus basically, everything would have remained the same.
Judge Wit continued: In order to mature in the big bad world of today, one needs to take responsibility for those things that matter. One cannot claim the right to stand on ones own two feet whilst staying in bed. One has to get up and stand.
The right to carry responsibility for ones own affairs, therefore, implies that one starts carrying that responsibility. Even if it were true that mother knows best, we cannot accept that mommy will take care of us to eternity.
Source: The Daily Herald St. Maarten
And so, any arrangement that sees to it that the Netherlands will forever be in charge of our affairs will reduce us to eternal adolescents, pitiful creatures indeed. This would be a violation of our right to human dignity which is, I think, the most fundamental right there is.
He said that to prevent this impending violation, we have to start behaving as adults. We have to take our fate in our own hands even though, for the time being at least, we will stay within the confines of our almost imaginary Kingdom which, by the way, is still real enough to produce both limitations and benefits for us.
Detained prison administrator Not being sent to Curacao
Filed under: Aruba News, Law Enforcement and Crime, St. Maarten News
PHILIPSBURG–The Prosecutor’s Office has decided it will not be necessary to send E.E.R., the female Pointe Blanche prison administrator from Aruba detained on allegations of fraud, to Bon Futuro prison in Curacao.
Prosecutor Dikran Sarian also said that although the suspect’s attorney had requested that she be transferred to the Pointe Blanche prison from the police station, she probably would remain in the police cells until the end of the investigation, which he said should be wrapped up within a week.
The Prosecutor’s Office had initially opted not to keep E.E.R. detained at the Pointe Blanche prison during pre-trial detention because some of the money she is suspected of stealing belonged to inmates.
Chief Prosecutor Taco Stein had told The Daily Herald on Thursday, “You can imagine what might happen if the inmates learn that there is someone locked up amongst them who is suspected of stealing their money.”
E.E.R. was detained following an investigation into the disappearance of almost NAf. 200,000.
Source: The Daily Herald St. Maarten
Celebration “like no other” in the Caribbean
Filed under: Airline News, Entertainment and Sport, Events, Travel and Tourism
Celebration like no other in the Caribbean The Caribbean’s biggest festival of the year is being prepared on the island of Curacao.
Karnaval will begin on January 2nd, 2008, saturating the island with colour and costumes for a “month-long cultural mash-up”.
Featuring local dance, food and entertainment, the festival builds up to the Grand Farewell Parade on February 5th.
“Karnaval is a pure celebration of our culture,” commented Eugene Rhuggenaath, the island’s commissioner of economic affairs and tourism.
“The energy builds throughout the month to a glorious eruption of joy during the Grand Parade,” he added.
Curacao’s native music, Tumba, provides the official soundtrack to Karnaval, incorporating musical competitions for parents, children and teenagers.
UK Holidaymakers can find all they need for the perfect exotic trip on the island, from “pristine diving locations”, secluded beaches, a championship golf course and “amazing world-class fishing”.
British Airways recently unveiled a number of special offers to the Caribbean, with holiday prices starting at £745 for a week-long trip.
There has been an increase in the number of British and Irish visitors to the Caribbean in recent months.
Between January and May this year 74,000 Brits holidayed in Jamaica alone, compared to 64,893 during the same period last year.
Source: Holiday Hypermarket
Three women caught with bolitas at PJIA
Filed under: Airline News, Law Enforcement and Crime, St. Maarten News
PHILIPSBURG–Customs on St. Maarten are investigating three female drug mules who were caught at Princess Juliana International Airport (PJIA) trying to board KLM and Air France flights with cocaine bolitas, to see if they are linked to each other.
Chief Customs Officer Anthony Doran told reporters the cocaine and cocaine base confiscated from some 200 bolitas weighed around 2.5kg.
He identified the suspects as I.R.B. and A.H.B.A., both born in Santo Domingo and living in St. Maarten, and F.S.A.F. of Curacao. He said they all had been caught during controls at the airport this past week.
He said F.S.A.F. had arrived in St. Maarten from Curacao and had been about to board an Air France flight that would have taken her to Paris, France, when Customs officers found reason to suspect her of having swallowed bolitas. She was taken to St. Maarten Medical Center (SMMC) where she was X-rayed and found to have a large quantity of bolitas.
The other two suspects had been in St. Maarten for some time and were about to board a KLM flight that would have taken them to Amsterdam, Holland, via Aruba, when they were caught by Customs.
Doran said further details regarding the cases could not be released at this stage, as the investigation was still ongoing.
Source: The Daily Herald St. Maarten