Dutch Caribbean Airlines
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article does not cite any references or sources. (August 2007) Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed. |
| Dutch Caribbean Airlines | ||
|---|---|---|
 |
||
| IATA K8 |
ICAO DCE |
Callsign Dutch Caribbean |
| Founded | 2002 | |
| Hubs | Hato International Airport | |
| Fleet size | 15 | |
| Destinations | 17 | |
| Parent company | DC Holding | |
| Company slogan | Bridge to Curaçao | |
| Headquarters | Curaçao, Netherlands Antilles | |
| Key people | Mario Evertsz | |
| Website: http://www.flydca.net/ | ||
Dutch Caribbean Airlines was an airline based in Curaçao of the Netherlands Antilles. It was founded after the dissolve Curacao's first airline, Air ALM. Dutch Caribbean Airline began its operations smoothly but went downhill with different problems during its time in service.
Contents |
[edit] History
Dutch Caribbean Airlines was actually established in 1964 as Air ABC (Air Aruba, Bonaire, Curacao) and the airline was later remaned 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 froaud, corruption and stealing 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 ownerchip of DC Holding [assed from the Antillean governement to the Curacao island governement and was controlled by Fundashon DC Beheer (the "DC Beheer foundation"). It seems worker's rights were guaranteed by the Antillean governement.
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 officialy declared bankrupt 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 personel of the airline shrunk from 1000 workers to anout 500 workers.
[edit] 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 Curacao as the connecting hub for it's 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-Curacao with prices as low as fls245. DCA arrogantly kicked out travel agencies that sold the competing Air Holland tickets. But later on Sobelair went bankrupt and DCA had no choice 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 Curacao. The airline began lacking the resources and even moneyto fullfill their obligations.
[edit] 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 Curacao altogethe, it kept on flying to Curacao as a regular destination. But Bonaire itsef is not benefitting as much as you would since the island is stuck with the cost to extend its runway and airport building to suite the new KLM flights. Today, KLM still uses Bonaire as a hub for its South American flights and is in the proces of using the new and improved Boeing 777 for its international flights to South America.
[edit] The demise
IN the early years of 2000, a new airline was introduced in Curacao. Divi Divi Air, an air commuter with daily flights between Bonaire and Curacao and also offered charter flights between Aruba, Bonaire, Curacao and Venezuela. With the introduction of Divi Divi, DCA began its downfall, but still maintaining 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 grew even worse and fast. Instead of preparing the airline for privatization, as he was instructed to do, DCA started the competition with KLM on the Curacao Amsterdam route and began buying and leasing more and more aircraft. This led to the re-use of the Twin Otter and acquired 4 leased DC9-30s. After the danw-fall of Sobelair and the Air Holland fiasco with Exel Aviation, the airline began leasing other large ranged aircraft to fly their international routes. The airline leased a L-1011 and a B767 for their flights but that ended up throwing DCA of the cliff for good.
By 2004, things were so bad that the airline applied for several loans to keep the airline steady. The airline eventualy got them and received fls37 million and it was used to enable the company to continue operating
In july 2004, only one DC9 was left in operation with the rest of its MD80 & DC9 aircraft where 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 announcment- and he staid on as the director of the once planned Curacao Airlines and Winair.
In october 2004, the airline finally collapsed and by then DCA had cost the government of Curacao atleast fls800 million and is suspected to be much more. After the airlines demise, mot of its aircraft were either sent to other operator (e.g. one Twin Otter was sent to [[Windward Islands Airways|Winair), scrapped (e.g. one MD82 parked next to the hangar at the Curacao airport) and others still awaiting their future (e.g. one Dash 8 planned to be sent to LIAT but still no assurance).
Today, DCA has been replaced with Insel Air and is also a 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 was almost led to the third government crisis in two years on the island of Curacao.
[edit] Destinations
These are the destinations that were operated by "Dutch Caribbean Airlines" when the airline was in service:
[edit] Caribbean
[edit] Europe
[edit] North America
[edit] South America
[edit] Fleet
During the transfer of the airline’s assets from Air ALM , the airline aquired some of the Air ALM aircraft and later on received other aircraft for its own.
[edit] Self owned aircraft
| Aircraft | Total | Passengers |
Registration | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bombardier Dash 8-311 | 2 | 50 | PJ-DHE, PJ,DHI | The Dash 8s were replaced later on with the Twin Otters. The registration PJ-DHE was later changed to PJ-DHL and was sitting on the Gneral Aviation's ramp at Curacao for over three years with continual run up tests. The aircraft has now left the island. |
| 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 8s PJ-TOD was sold to Windward Island Airways (Winair) and has been leased to Curacao'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 | |
| McDonnell Douglas MD-82 | 2 | 152 | PJ-SEF, PJ-SEG | PJ-SEF currently resides next to the hangars at the Curacao Airport |
| McDonnell Douglas MD-83 | 1 | 155 | PJ-SEH |
[edit] Leased aircraft
When the airline began it's 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 culd 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 | Total | Passengers |
Registration | Leased from | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Boeing 767-204ER | 1 | 181 | TF-ATY | Air Atlanta Icelandic | |
| Boeing 767-330ER | 2 | 218 | OO-SLR, OO-SLT | Sabena (Sobelair) | OO-SLR was repainted in the Dutch Caribbean Airlines livery, meanwhile OO-SLT stayed in it's original Sobelair livery. |
| Lockheed L-1011-500 | 1 | 234 | CS-TMR | Luzair | CS-TMR is still operating for Luzair |
[edit] Aircraft Names
While flying for ALM, all of the aircraft in their fleet had a it's own name, most names where taken up after local trees types of the islands. After ALM became DCA, most of the aircraft had gotten ridden of their names, except for the MD80's. Here is the list of the names of the MD80's:
| Aircraft | Registration | Name |
|---|---|---|
| McDonnell Douglas MD-82 | PJ-SEF | Flamboyant |
| McDonnell Douglas MD-82 | PJ-SEG | Kibrahacha |
| McDonnell Douglas MD-83 | PJ-SEH | Watapana |
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.
[edit] External links
|
||||||||||||||
