Watapana From Netherlands Antilles, joined Oct 2004, 39 posts, RR: 1 Posted (8 years 7 months 2 weeks 6 days 11 hours ago) and read 1427 times:
ALM Antillean Airlines and later on Dutch Caribbean Airlines were once the pride, but now have turned into the shame of CUR. Where did it go wrong? Was it missmanagement or missplaced national pride?
Komododx From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 1, posted (8 years 7 months 2 weeks 6 days 6 hours ago) and read 1330 times:
Hola Watapana, konta bai?
I think it's definitely missmanagement, not national pride. DCA is just ALM with a different paint scheme. Why doesn't KL set up some sort of franchise in CUR and Bonaire? After all, it IS dutch territory!
Watapana From Netherlands Antilles, joined Oct 2004, 39 posts, RR: 1 Reply 2, posted (8 years 7 months 2 weeks 6 days ago) and read 1291 times:
Tur kos ta bon danki.....
They are a prime example of what goes wrong when you let a Government in charge of an airline. I would rather like to see an alliance of Caribbean Airlines working together. Give AA and American Eagle a run for their money!
After all know one knows the Caribbean better!
Watapana
SkyCruise Airlines- Your going places and SO are We!
GlobeTrekker From Netherlands, joined Dec 2003, 851 posts, RR: 16 Reply 3, posted (8 years 7 months 2 weeks 5 days 22 hours ago) and read 1268 times:
-Watapana
"I would rather like to see an alliance of Caribbean Airlines working together. Give AA and American Eagle a run for their money!"
I don't see that ever happening. The reason why American Eagle is so successful is because of it's tie-in with AA and subsequently the OneWorld Alliance. They offer extensive connection possibilities to mainland USA and from there the world, with through fares. No Caribbean carrier can offer that so easily. The fares are on average higher on American Eagle, than the typical Caribbean airline, but still they remain successfully. They have got the name and in general they are reliable. The Caribbean area in general really rely heavily on North American tourism and the majority of those tourist tend to fly AA/Eagle, because they are coming from all over the USA.
As for ALM and DCA the major mistake was not concentrating on their core business; FLYING. They should have split the company in smaller independent units, like many airlines do these days or outsource the ground units; catering service and ground handling.
You would make special agreements with the handling agent, like making sure that the ALM/DCA name would remain visible and having a pool of agents only dedicated to ALM/DCA continue wearing the companies uniform, increasing brand recognition. The pax does not care or rarely knows if an agent is directly employed by the airline or a handling agent.
That is what FQ did when they were still operating....the ground handler was bought by Menzies (then Ogden Aviation Services). Ogden handled FQ's flights in uniform and in addition also made money by handling other airlines. The pax rarely noticed anything. The company itself was officially Ogden Aviation Services Aruba NV, however was publically known as Air Aruba/Ogden Ground Services dba.
But politics, pride, arrogance and ignorance played a bigger role in my opinion. Not good things to run a business.
GlobeTrekker From Netherlands, joined Dec 2003, 851 posts, RR: 16 Reply 4, posted (8 years 7 months 2 weeks 5 days 20 hours ago) and read 1224 times:
-Watapana
"After all no one knows the Caribbean better!"
I think for an airline to operate successfully in the Caribbean or anywhere else for that matter they should know the market they are operating in. American Eagle is doing well. AA/Eagle leads in the Caribbean area for a reason; they know their stuff.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I do think that Puerto Rico is in the Caribbean and therefore the crew that is based in SJU are also Caribbeans.
What pax want these days are punctuality, reliability, good fares and frequencies. And for some the ability to earn miles is also important. I think AA/Eagle offers that.
Airfrancejfk From United States of America, joined Jan 2002, 474 posts, RR: 0 Reply 5, posted (8 years 7 months 2 weeks 5 days 10 hours ago) and read 1131 times:
Question, what ever happened with the code share that Surinam Airways had with ALM. I believe PY had problems with flying to Miami, something about their FAA rating, so they used to fly their equipment from PBM to Curacao, where they would connect to ALM to Miami. It was a PY flight # all the way through but 2 different airlines. Did the service continue with DCA? And if so, whose serving the route now?
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