PHILLIPSBURG – AVA Airways was granted its business economic permit to operate its Airline business plan. According to the Chairman of Ava Airways, Olivier Arrindell the airline is now on its way to certified its Airline and finalized with their Airline Operators Certificate (AOC).
AVA-director Olivier Arrindell feels very positive and looking forward to working with the St. Maarten Civil Aviation Authority. According to him, It’s time for St. Maarten to get out of IASA CAT 2 and move the island into the right direction of Aviation. St. Maarten needs airlift. The island cannot be dependent upon North American traffic anymore,” said Arrindell.
Recently Arrindell and the President of AVA Airways Curaçao Giovanni Atalita presented AVA Airways plans to the Ministry of Transportation, Civil Aviation and Economic Development in Sint Maarten.
“One of our main objectives is to learn from the past and to propose a bold new direction for commercial aviation in St. Maarten. St. Maarten’s economic situation needs this at the moment. The island’s only local airline, Winair is going through some financial tough times due to its way of thinking and narrow legacy view of things. InselAir is a bankrupt airline that keeps getting help from the Government of Curaçao, St. Maarten has no way to compete with the high cost of travel within our Antilles. The financial institution Korpodeko has 20% of the shareholdings of InselAir and has lent the airline some needed cash. This is wrong and is a violation of the trade agreement within the Kingdom,” said Arrindell.
“InselAir has serious financial problems because of the way they manage their company not because of funds stuck in Venezuela. This is just an easy excuse. Korpodeko will also look to other financial institutions for the other part of the amount need by the airline. This doesn’t give much hope for the airlift and the economy of the island,” said Arrindell.
AVA Airways will start its operations with the A319/A320 aircraft types. The Airbus A320neo family is a family of aircraft under development by Airbus replacing the predecessor A320 family (now A320ceo (current engine option).The letters “neo” stand for “New Engine Option” and are the last step of the modernization program A320 Enhanced (or “A320E”) which was started in 2006.
According to Arrindell this type of aircraft fits perfect into AVA’s operations on an East West hub.
Bron: CuracaoChronicle