While airlines have significantly reduced their flights to Sint Maarten due to the current pandemic, PJIAE (Princess Juliana International Airport) Management is preparing its second cost reduction program in order to survive the COVID-19 crisis and guarantee its operations and business continuity.
While recovering from the financial and infrastructural damage caused by Hurricane Irma in 2017, PJIAE faces an even greater challenge. Due to the global pandemic, the airport closed on March 23, 2020 and reopened in August 2020 for international traffic, resulting in a big financial loss. During this difficult time, PJIAE management introduced a first wave of cost reduction measures, which included reductions in employee benefits and other cost reductions, such as reductions in all service level agreements. These reductions were necessary to secure PJIAE's operations for 2020, but with current incoming figures of around 10% from 2019, additional cost-cutting measures will need to be implemented to secure operations for 2021.
“The main objective of the cost reduction program is to preserve as much liquidity as necessary to guarantee airport services intended for the good reception of tourists.
In August and September, we saw traffic increase but not as much as we hoped ", underlines the general manager of PJIAE, Brian Mingo, before adding" the main engines of growth for PJIAE, as well as the economic recovery of island, depend on the restart of flights, the ease of travel restrictions to Sint Maarten, and the provision of PCR testing services at the airport (due to limited availability of PCR testing in the United States and other countries). In addition, the prevention and control of COVID-19 epidemics, uniform island-wide safety and hygiene protocols are all essential for the return of our loyal tourists ”. _AF
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