AMSTERDAM--The Dutch airline Arkefly has withdrawn its planned flights from Eindhoven Airport to Aruba and Curaçao. Flights to and from the Dutch Caribbean may be carried out only through Amsterdam Schiphol Airport due to the increased risk of drug trafficking.
Arkefly announced on Monday that it decided to move its flights per November 1, from Eindhoven Airport to Schiphol following talks with Eindhoven Airport and the Dutch Government. Minister of Security and Justice Ard van der Steur confirmed the decision.
Government wants flights with an increased risk of drug smuggling to only land at an airport with sufficient control facilities. Only Schiphol currently has sufficient facilities from these high-risk flights from Aruba, Curaçao, St. Maarten, Suriname and Venezuela, Van der Steur stated in a letter to the Second Chamber of the Dutch Parliament.
Van der Steur announced that the process to adapt the Aviation Law to make it mandatory that high-risk flights may only land at an airport with sufficient control facilities, in this case Schiphol Airport, would start this year.
Authorities determined this summer that it was not possible to offer the so-called 100 per cent control of passengers and their luggage at Eindhoven Airport. The 100-per-cent control was introduced at Schiphol in 2001 to tackle the smuggling of drugs, mostly through persons who swallowed so-called “bolitas,” cocaine-filled rubbers.
“The non-availability of a robust control system at Eindhoven Airport would mean that the door for drug smuggling to Eindhoven would have been opened wide, and that was not an option,” stated Van der Steur in his letter to Parliament.
Arkefly stated in a press release that it was disappointed that the flights from Eindhoven Airport could not go ahead. “We find it a pity that we cannot start our Antilles-operation from Eindhoven, also because the sales so far were very good,” stated Arkefly Managing Director Hans van de Velde.
“But it is of course very important to prevent illegal things from entering our country. We have been convinced that it is better to have our Antilles flights only land at Schiphol. Government has emphasized that other airlines won’t be allowed either to carry out this route from Eindhoven,” stated Van de Velde.
The airline had hoped to create a new market, as Eindhoven Airport could have served as a “catchment area” for travellers from the South of the Netherlands, the Western area of Germany and North-Belgium, who want to visit the Dutch Caribbean.
Arkefly will be contacting those passengers, who had already bought a ticket shortly. With the added two flights, which will now be executed from Schiphol, the total number of Arkefly flights to Aruba, Curaçao and Bonaire will increase to nine per week. Arkefly will start direct flights to St. Maarten from Amsterdam in November.
