The Insiders' Guide to St. Barths: New Juliana/Winair Chaos

Since you asked....

We offer the following services: SXM VIP service, airline tickets on Air Caraibes/Winair, charter flights on all companies, private boat transfers (including Master Ski Pilou, Oceanmust and Yannis Marine) at no extra charge. We use all solutions available for our clients because we know everyone in the tourim business in St Maarten and St Barths. Flexibility is the key here. The only thing we stopped selling is ferry tickets (wonder why).

But enough of self promotion.

My advices: Plan your trip with facts and not speculations.

1. buy an airline ticket to St Maarten which arrives as early as possible in SXM (before 3 pm if possible). Stop buying the USAir that gets in at 4pm as most of the time (except with lots of luck) you will NOT make that connection to St Barths. I know USAir is very convenient to get to SBH (good rates, flights, and bags checked all the way through), but what's the point if you're stuck in St Maarten? It's better to spend a bit more on a different flight but able to get the connection to SBH on the same day. Hopefully USAir will realize their mistake soon enough and re-schedule that flight.

2. If you arrive later than 3 pm, travel with carry ons (I know, no gels, liquids, etc...), but that will save a LOT of time and hassle upon arrival. If you absolutely need your bags to be checked, use an SXM VIP Service to be booked through us or Premium IV (we have the same agents in SXM in any case). We will take care of your bags between flights so that you can still use the in-transit system in the new airport and save about one hour.

3. The SJU/ Tradewinds deal is great and can work for some but it's not very flexible. They have only 1 scheduled flight daily (sometimes two) and it sells very quickly. If you miss it (delays for example), then it's a much more complicated situation to reach St Barths. There is no "master ski pilou" there, Puerto Rico is 200 miles (not 15) from St Barths.
The immigration/screening checks in SJU are also a nightmare when you return from the islands. Large airport, lots of walking, waiting lines are very long, and you can easily miss a connecting flight too.

4. The night is St Maarten is a good solution if you want to do it. It's a truly Caribbean island (not as sophisticated and upscale as St Barths but is nice for one day -or more). If you stay one night in St Maarten, lots of very nice hotels and restaurants are avaialable. You can enjoy great dining, shopping and more with two different worlds (french side and dutch side).

5. Out of St Maarten, use the Grand Case airport from the French side. It's a small airport, with cheap scheduled flights 3 times a day on St Barth Commuter.
The immigration/screening procedures take 5 to 10 minutes at most.

6. The "get together" regularly found on this forum for a dinner in St Barths could also be made for charter flight or private boat transfers.

7. Winair: yes we can blame them, but don't forget that it is the only reliable airline in the region which is still in place. If this airline came out of business, it would be a disaster for all. They do their best to deal with the new airport (they're not happy neither, it brings more costs to them, and the connecting angry passengers to deal with every day don't make their job easy). Also, it is not their fault if the people at USAir have scheduled a flight that arrives after 4pm. (I know it's not the only problem here, don't attack me, please!)

8. The 90 minutes rule between flights has always been in place (for many years), and it worked fine with less than that. This rule is now used as a protection shield because the new procedures take more time. It's up to us, travel planners, and to the frequent flyers to St Barths, to get used to it and make arrangements accordingly. FORGET the hand-written bagages tags from the USAir staff.

9. The sunset time is the limit for all flights to St Barths (scheduled AND charters). The real rule is that the aircraft leaving St Maarten must be in the air BEFORE sunset. Once the sun has set, there's an "allowance' of another 15 minutes to make the flight and land in St Barths. Airlines (and pilots, I know well, since I'm one) hate to leave at the last minute because this "15 minutes slot" is very strict. You CANNOT land in St Barths later than 15 minutes after sunset. That means that arriving at the 16th minute, you will have to overfly the field, and fly back to St Maarten on an IFR (instrument flying rules) flight. As you all know, in winter the sun sets earlier every day until the end of December(around the 21st or so), when it's then around 5:15 pm. That means that every passing day is currently a shorter day, with all consequences on flights from St Maarten to St Barths. This is not helping this issue.

10. the ferries: it seems that no one really knows when they will operate again. it seemns that Voyager will back into service soon, but let's wait and see.

11. The tourism professionals in St Barths (Association des Hôteliers) is currently looking for solutions. Keep tuned about this.

12. Relax, you're on vacation, take the Caribbean rythm, this is not the same world. That is why you're here (I'm sure Tim knows what I mean). Think of the 1960's when Mr Rockefeller had to come to his property in Colombier. It surely wasn't easy to reach the island then There wasn't sbhonline.com with "live news", SXM VIP Services or 15 flights a day. It never really was easy to get there in fact (I have intersting stories about this -another time perhaps) and that is why the island remained protected so much.

Cheers

Erik @ Sun Destinations
www.sun-destinations.net

--------------------
Only happy at 41,000 feet