Dutch Caribbean Airlines was
an airline based in Curaçao
of the
Netherlands
Antilles
. It was founded after the demise of
Curaçao's first airline, Air ALM. Dutch Caribbean Airline began its
operations smoothly but went downhill with different problems
during its time in service.
History
Dutch Caribbean Airlines was actually established in 1964 as Air
ABC (Air Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao) and the airline was later renamed
to Antillianse Luchtvaart Maatchappij (ALM) to take over the
services of the Caribbean division of
KLM. In
the year 2000,
ALM Antillean Airlines had
deteriorated to the point where it just couldn't be kept alive.
Strong suspicions exist that fraud, corruption and theft by workers
and management were going on and the airline had built up an
enormous debt of almost fls340 Million (
guilders) in the years since 1969, when the
Antillean government had taken over the shares from KLM.
The airline was succeeded by Air ALM, which was owned by the same
DC Holding that owned ALM Antillean Airlines and later Dutch
Caribbean Airlines. The ownership of DC Holding [passed from the
Antillean government to the Curaçao island government and was
controlled by Fundashon DC Beheer (the "DC Beheer foundation"). It
seems worker's rights were guaranteed by the Antillean
government.
After an interlude that did not last longer than a couple of
months, it seemed that Air ALM could not survive, and a similar
construction was used to transfer the airline's assets once more,
this time to Dutch Caribbean Airlines. The airline officially
declared bankruptcy in 2002. The new director, Mario Evertsz, was
to prepare the company for privatization in less than six
months.
In Aruba and later on in other countries, the company was named
Dutch Caribbean Express (DCE), because the company name DCA had
already been registered. Between the end of ALM in 2000 and the
near end of DCA in 2004, the personnel of the airline shrunk from
1000 workers to about 500 workers.
The Mid-Atlantic war
KLM's final joint activity with ALM/DCA was when KLM invested in
the airline's new catering building. At the time KLM was still
using Curaçao as the connecting hub for its South America-Europe
flights, which was an extremely profitable operation with a
traditional cooperation between KLM and ALM/DCA. But later on, DCA
itself began competing with KLM on the Curaçao-Amsterdam flights
with Holland based, Dutch
Citybird. But
Citybird went bankrupt and Sobelair (a division of Belgian
Sabena) was followed up as DCA's partner.
Other
airlines joined the fray, such as Holland based Air Holland
. It
also began flying Amsterdam-Curaçao with prices as low as fls245
guilders. DCA arrogantly kicked out travel agencies that sold the
competing Air Holland tickets. But later on
Sobelair went bankrupt and DCA had no choice but to
turn to none other than Air Holland. DCA desperately tried
contracting other charter companies, but had no such luck, the
airline left passengers stranded in Amsterdam and Curaçao. The
airline began lacking the resources and even money to fulfill their
obligations.
KLM’s revenge
KLM now decided that it had to take revenge against DCA for
betraying them and began to lower its prices and moved its South
American stops to Bonaire, therefore ending the use of Hato
International Airport as a hub. But KLM did not stop flying to
Curaçao altogether, it kept on flying to Curaçao as a regular
destination. But Bonaire itself is not benefitting as much as one
would think since the island is stuck with the cost to extend its
runway and airport building to suit the new KLM flights. Today, KLM
still uses Bonaire as a hub for its South American flights and is
in the process of using the new and improved
Boeing 777 for its international flights to South
America.
The demise
In the early years of 2000, a new airline was introduced in
Curaçao,
Divi Divi Air, an air
commuter with daily flights between Bonaire and Curaçao and also
offering charter flights between Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao and
Venezuela. With the introduction of Divi Divi, DCA began its
downfall, though still maintaining some of its operations. But in
2003, a new airline began flying between the ABC islands, as well
as St Maarten, another DCA destination.
BonairExel began competing against DCA and it
operated under the Exel Aviation Group. Eventually DCA's partner
out of desperation joined the Exel Group and was renamed
HollandExel. When BonairExel began competing against DCA, DCA had
to lower their prices to almost that of Divi Divi Air's level, and
forced BonairExel to fly that cheaply as well.
While under Mario Evertsz's management, things rapidly grew even
worse. Instead of preparing the airline for privatization, as he
was instructed to do, DCA started the competition with KLM on the
Curaçao Amsterdam route and began buying and leasing more and more
aircraft. This led to the re-use of the Twin Otter and the
acquisition of 4 leased DC9-30s. After the downfall of Sobelair and
the Air Holland fiasco with Exel Aviation, the airline began
leasing other longer range aircraft to fly their international
routes. The airline leased a L-1011 and a B767 for their flights
but that ended up throwing DCA off the cliff for good.
By 2004, things were so bad that the airline applied for several
loans to keep the airline steady. The airline eventually got them
and received fls37 million guilders that were used to enable the
company to continue operating
In July 2004, only one DC9 was left in operation while the rest of
its MD80 & DC9 aircraft were grounded, its Dash 8s were removed
from its fleet and were replaced with the Twin Otters, and the 767s
and L-1011 were returned to their original operators. Mario Evertsz
resigned as DCA's director -without any announcement- but he did
stay on as the director of Curaçao Airlines and Winair.
In October 2004, the airline finally collapsed and by then DCA had
cost the government of Curaçao at least fls800 million guilders and
likely much more. After the airlines demise, most of it's aircraft
were either sold to other operators (e.g. one Twin Otter was sent
to
Winair and one Dash 8
was sent to
LIAT and the DC-9's were sold to
Aserca Airlines), scrapped (e.g. one
MD82 parked next to the hangar at the Curaçao airport) and others
still awaiting their future.
Today, DCA has been replaced with Insel Air which is also an MD80
operator, while Divi Divi Air still operates the same fights under
the same name and BonairExel has been reformed into
Dutch Antilles Express. The DCA
breakdown had almost led to the third government crisis in two
years on the island of Curaçao.
Destinations
These are the destinations that were operated by "Dutch Caribbean
Airlines" when the airline was in service:
Caribbean
Europe
North America
South America
Fleet
During the transfer of the airline’s assets from Air ALM , the
airline acquired some of the Air ALM aircraft and later on received
other aircraft for its own.
Self owned aircraft
Dutch Caribbean Airlines Fleet
| Aircraft |
Total |
Passengers
|
Registration |
Notes |
| Bombardier Dash
8-311 |
2 |
50 |
PJ-DHE, PJ,DHI |
The Dash 8's were replaced later on with the Twin Otters. The
registration PJ-DHE was later changed to PJ-DHL
and was sitting on the General Aviation's ramp at Curaçao for over
three years with continual run up tests. The aircraft has now left
the island and is in service with LIAT along
with PJ-DHI. |
| De Havilland
Canada Dash 6-300 Twin Otter |
2 |
19 |
PJ-TOC, PJ-TOD |
The Twin Otters were the replacement aircraft for the
"supposed" aging Dash 8's PJ-TOD was sold to Windward Island Airways and has
been leased to Curaçao's new regional airline Insel Air to replace the airline's Embraer 110-P1 Bandeirante when in maintenance
or on leave for a C-Check |
| Douglas DC-9-32 |
4 |
115 |
PJ-SNL, PJ-SNL, PJ-SNM, PJ-SNN |
The DC9's were all sold to Aserca
Airlines, where they are still in service flying for Aserca.
All of the aircraft have received new registrations and a new
livery, complying with Aserca's color schemes. |
| McDonnell Douglas
MD-82 |
2 |
152 |
PJ-SEF, PJ-SEG |
After
years of being parked next to the hangars of the airport,
PJ-SEF sadly was towed away from the hangars at the
Curaçao Airport to the shredder on August 1, 2008 and
PJ-SEG is supposedly scrapped in Mexico . |
| McDonnell Douglas
MD-83 |
1 |
155 |
PJ-SEH |
|
Leased aircraft
When the airline began its downfall, it began creating alliances
with other charter airlines. One by one these alliances were broken
because of the allied airlines themselves had declared bankruptcy.
When it seemed that the airline could not find a suitable airline
to create an alliance with, the airline finally decided to declare
bankruptcy. Here is the list for the leased aircraft:
Aircraft Names
While flying for ALM, all of the aircraft in their fleet had its
own name, most of these names were adopted from names of tree types
local to the islands. After ALM became DCA, usage of the aircraft
names were dropped, except for the MD80's. Here is the list of the
names of the MD80's:
The airline leased the
Lockheed
L-1011 from
Luzair and
Boeing 767 from
Air Atlanta Icelandic after a struggle
with most of its
MD80 aircraft grounded with
technical difficulties and the collapse of
Sobelair.
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