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Local air carriers

 
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yaofeng
Aruba Lover


Joined: 05 Oct 2008
Posts: 49
Location: East Brunswick, New Jersey

PostPosted: Fri Nov 02, 2012 2:22 pm    Post subject: Local air carriers Reply with quote

Went to the neighboring island Curacao yesterday. It was only the fourth time I went there of the many trips I made Aruba. Over the years there have been a few changes to the operators. As of now there are three flying the ABC islands, DAE (Dutch Antilles Express), Insel Air, and Tiara. The first time I flew Dutch Caribbean Airlines (DCA) now defuct. The next three one each from the above listed although not by design. I simply didn't know any better. There has been delays, but nothing significant to raise an issue. You are in the Caribbean after all.

I flew DAE yesterday to Curacao. My 11:45AM departure was delayed until 1:40PM. That is considered normal. The direct flight was routed to a stop at Bonaire, making the 12:15PM arrival 3PM at HATO. That's not all. I found on the flight there were passengers who were supposed to be on the 7PM flight previous evening and some who were supposed to be on th 8AM flight. In effect DAE lumped passengers from three flights into one to fill the Fokker 80, a decent size jet plane.

This morning it happened again. I wanted to come back to Aruba early so I changed my departure to be the first flight at 8AM. I was told it was cancelled. The next flight leaves at 10:30, which I took. But it did not leave HATO until 11:45AM. The flight was full.

From the recent experience I suspect DAE deliberately cancels flights when it finds there are not enough passengers so it squeezes them into a full flight later to save cost. But this is only my suspicision. I asked people on the island they all have the same suspicion too. But it seems no one is doing anything or can do anything because they said no one carrier is better than the other.

So much for the Caribbean laid back culture.

What I do know is Tiara uses smaller propeller planes while both Insel Air and DAE use bigger jet planes. I think next time I will use Tiara so the chance of having the flight cancelled because of an empty plane is not as big as a bigger jet plane. Take it for what it is worth.

BTW if you rent a car in Curacao do not rent from Budget. I did National/Alamos the previous occasion I rented GPS which is indispensible this day and age if you are not familiar with the surroundings. Budget rental car in Curacao does not have any GPS for rent although it seems to be the cheapest. Cheapest is not alway better. In fact many time it is just the opposite.

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JohnT
Aruba Fanatic


Joined: 22 Jul 2002
Posts: 855
Location: Ormond Beach, FL

PostPosted: Sun Nov 04, 2012 1:14 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

It's been a while since we went to both Bonaire and Curacao...2 times each. They were using things like the Dash-8 prop planes. I suppose small jet service is an upgrade, but I presume there are a least 50 seats (instead of 30). I understand they need full planes. Two steps forward, one step back!
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~Amy~®
Moderator


Joined: 12 Jul 2002
Posts: 1348
Location: Minneapolis, MN

PostPosted: Sun Nov 04, 2012 1:33 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

We did a day trip to Curacao a couple of years ago. We used Tiara Air (small prop plane) and did a 7:30am flight over and an 8pm flight back. Both flights were on time and we had no problems - even got a warm pastechi and juice box for breakfast on the morning flight which was only 30 minutes long.
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yaofeng
Aruba Lover


Joined: 05 Oct 2008
Posts: 49
Location: East Brunswick, New Jersey

PostPosted: Sun Nov 04, 2012 8:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Haha! As recent as last year when I flew Tiara to Punto Fijo I still at least got a juice box for the 20 minute air time flight. I hope Tiara still does it.

There is nothing from DAE, even with the 24 hour delay for some passengers on my outbound to Curacao which they added a stop to Bonaire. This DAE learned from the US carrier quite well. Actually you could not even buy food in flight if you want to. The DAE ground staff did ask for the email address of every passenger. The consensus is we will be getting an email apology from the carrier.

The only time I came back to Aruba going home the Continental 757 had a mechanical problem the captain turned the plane around to land in Oranjestad to play it safe. Every one got a free stay at the Renaissance and meal plus $170 voucher for a future flight. And that was at least five years ago.

I am going with Tiara next local journey.

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