Travel and Leisure in St Martin SXM: AIR ANTILLES EXPRESS THREAT TO STOP ITS Side
Tax on airline tickets from Grand Case
Air Antilles Express threatens to stop its routes
The Community has introduced a tax on airline tickets from 10 euros per passenger from 1 July. A new tax that causes many reactions among airlines serving the airport of Grand Case to Guadeloupe and Martinique. Air Antilles Express plans to stop operating the service, causing concern among site managers and service providers.
Yesterday, at the monthly meeting between management and operators of airport Grand Case, the subject was on everyone’s lips: Air Antilles Express would cease its activity at the airport in Grand Case. Information entirely justified, since in a letter dated June 15, the director of the company CAIRO (Airline Inter-Regional Express) has informed the company ATSM (Marigot Airlines Ticket Services) which provides assistance to the ground it plans to discontinue operating the service on Grand-Case. “We will tell you in a few days before the date scheduled outage,” says he in his letter. An ad that has been a bombshell in ATSM which has invested heavily in machinery and equipment support, since its inception in 2004. Worried, the director of ATSM sent a letter to the President of the Community Alain Richardson, June 19, to alert people about the situation.
“This information in response to your decision to introduce a new tax of € 10 for boarding passengers on the Grand Case airport,” he explains to President Richardson, noting in passing that ATSM, which is installed Grand Case since 2007, employs nine people dedicated to ground support equipment for Air Antilles Express. “You can imagine the disastrous consequences of the departure of this major operator on the activities of our airport, departure calls into question all development projects and hopes we had founded with the arrival of the SNC Lavalin last year. ATSM has also invested in hardware and support equipment for a range of services that allows to develop new services in Santo Domingo and Port au Prince, but the departure of one of them will challenge all of these projects directly , and cause the loss of revenue from passengers who pass by Juliana, surely higher revenues to the hopes of this tax revenue for boarding, “concluded the Director of ATSM in its letter to the president.
The Air Antilles Express currently provides three daily flights from Grand Case, the program regularly additional flights according to seasonal fluctuations, which represents about 45% of traffic to the destination. President Richardson, who is currently traveling in Europe, has so far decided to maintain this new tax of 10 euros charged on tickets for journeys longer than 50km. Territorial Council of 31 May had decided to introduce this new tax from 1 July 2012, but exempting journeys of less than 50km. Thus, the company St Barth Commuter Bruno Magras, incidentally president of the community of St Bartholomew, is spared from taxation, while the companies Air Caraibes and Air Antilles Express serving Guadeloupe and Martinique are directly concerned.
At the meeting between the leadership of SNC Lavalin and company representatives and Air Caribbean Air Antilles Express, Friday, the companies said they planned to leave the site if the new ticket tax was applied. Recall that the community, which suffers from the lack of tax revenue, voted this tax to fund the purchase of land to expand the runway and specific actions under the opening.
(source : St Martin Week)