The carrier was meanwhile rebranded as Z Air
PHILIPSBURG--A requirement that government imposed on Curaçao-based airline EZ Air to begin flying to St. Maarten was overturned by the Court of First Instance on Monday.
Last August, the St. Maarten government issued a permit to EZ Air to operate commercial flights to and from the country. This came almost a month after the court ordered government to decide on EZ Air’s permit request, which had been left unanswered for about a year at that point.
At the time, Minister of Tourism, Economic Affairs, Transport and Telecommunication (TEATT) Grisha Heyliger-Marten described the permit as an amicable solution to the developing stand-off between the governments in Philipsburg and Willemstad over airline licences.
However, EZ Air’s permit – which will lapse on April 30, 2025 – required the airline to demonstrate how supervisory tasks and safety checks would be split between the civil aviation authorities in Curaçao and the United States (US) for its fleet of five American-registered aircraft.
The airline cannot start operations without fulfilling this condition, with the government demanding that the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) outline the shared supervisory tasks in writing.
In last month’s court hearing, EZ Air’s lawyers argued that the airline was unfairly burdened by this requirement because it could only be fulfilled by the FAA, a third party that the company cannot influence or control. Moreover, the lawyers argued that the requirement was unnecessary because the division of supervisory tasks was already clearly outlined.
Government’s lawyers had argued that the condition ensures effective supervision, as the current documentation makes it unclear which country checks whether the five aircraft are airworthy. This is especially necessary as the fleet operates solely outside the US and Curaçao does not have personnel trained to inspect those types of aircraft, the lawyers told the court.
The administrative judge sided with EZ Air in Monday’s verdict and annulled the government’s condition to start flights.
The judge ruled that the airline is already following an FAA-approved maintenance programme, which “specifically describes which tasks relating to the supervision of the aircraft’s airworthiness fall under the FAA’s responsibility and which tasks fall under that of the supervisor of the country of the operator.”
This was already known to St. Maarten because these documents were submitted when EZ Air applied for its permit, the judge noted in her 12-page verdict.
The judge also found it hard to see how the required letter from the FAA “contributes in any way to improving the practical implementation of supervisory tasks.”
“The letter does not require any additional and/or further practical implementation agreement with regard to the supervision of the aircraft,” the judge said in the verdict. “Because the necessity of the document required by the St. Maarten Civil Aviation Authority has not been demonstrated, the court finds that the government could not reasonably decide to attach the contested condition to the permit. This applies all the more because the permit is made entirely dependent on this condition, with not the plaintiff but only the FAA being able to comply with it.”
EZ Air’s first flight to St. Maarten may still be a long way off, even with Monday’s verdict. Government has the right to an appeal, and this must be filed within six weeks. Additionally, the court’s verdict only applies to EZ Air’s current permit, which expires in a little more than two
months.
Since last year, the governments of St. Maarten and Curaçao have been trading denials and approvals of the airlines based in their respective countries. Last August, just two days before Heyliger-Marten signed EZ Air’s permit, her counterpart in Curaçao, Charles Cooper, denied the request of St. Maarten’s government-owned airline Winair to increase its flights between the two islands. Like Heyliger-Marten, the court had ordered Cooper to re-issue the decision after ruling that his previous rejection had been insufficiently justified.
Cooper backtracked in early September 2024, allowing Winair to operate extra flights until April 1, 2025. This was around the same time that St. Maarten extended EZ Air’s permit to April 30, 2025.
