Winair, with its fleet of de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otters, is the only commercial airline to fly to Saba on a daily basis. (File photo)
By Dimetri Whitfield
SABA--Two shipping companies in Saba have been scrambling for more than a week to transport hundreds of pounds of stranded parcels and air mail after St. Maarten’s government-owned airline Winair imposed a strict 20-kilogramme cargo limit.
Island Communication Services (ICS) and Saba Educational Services (SES), the local agents for a combined five courier and mail delivery services, have reported severe delays and steeply rising expenses stemming from Winair halting its bulk cargo services.
Large quantities of cargo have been stuck in St. Maarten, with ICS estimating its amount at 600 pounds, while SES said it has “hundreds of pounds” left. Officials of the two companies say Winair’s policy shift took them by complete surprise and they criticise the airline’s poor communication for worsening their logistical chaos.
Winair – the only commercial airline with daily flights to Saba – stopped transporting bulk cargo to the surrounding islands at the beginning of this month, limiting shipments to “speed mail” of 20 kilogrammes, or 44 pounds, per flight.
Earlier this year, Winair started the process to become certified under IOSA, a globally recognised safety evaluation system established by the International Air Transport Association (IATA).
An assessment done about two months ago determined that Winair did not comply with IOSA’s cargo rules, which are stricter than national laws and aviation regulations, Winair chief executive officer (CEO) Hans van de Velde told The Daily Herald on Monday.
This, combined with Winair’s cargo operations making “nearly nothing”, led to the decision to suspend bulk cargo until further notice, Van de Velde said.
While Winair hopes to become IOSA-certified in early 2025, it still has to be determined whether the airline will pursue the needed requirements to resume bulk cargo operations.
“That is what we are looking at right now; how much money, time, energy, it will cost us to become compliant for cargo under IOSA. And if it turns out to be viable for us, then yes, cargo will be back,” Van de Velde said. “But, again, what complicates this situation is that we don’t make money on cargo.”
Impact on Saba
“This decision has affected us tremendously,” said Alida Heilbron, founder and owner of ICS, which is the agent for the local post office and courier services DHL, UPS, and Easyship.
She told this newspaper on Sunday that no regular mail had reached or left Saba last week, while DHL and UPS packages were also stuck in limbo.
ICS has since resorted to using Winair’s speed mail service, but this is “way more expensive” for customers, Heilbron said.
SES, the agent for American mail delivery service FedEX, has also had to find a way to deal with shipping delays. Although SES did receive some packages last weekend, operations manager Vanessa Wilson said her weekly shipment had to be split and sent piece-meal over two days to comply with Winair’s new weight restrictions.
The cost of shipping has more than doubled due to the need to break down larger shipments into smaller parcels, Wilson said, adding that the increased cost will probably be passed on to consumers.
Increased prices for air freight will contribute to raising the already-high cost of living in Saba, which is the most expensive island in the Caribbean Netherlands according to a 2023 study done by the Dutch Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS).
Being required to break up larger shipments will also add to Saba’s comparative isolation in the region, as the two companies may now be unable to send all their mail on the same day.
Both Heilbron and Wilson said their customers use courier services to send paperwork to institutions abroad, some of which are not present in Saba, and speed is a crucial factor.
“Imagine you have important documents, like passports and banking applications, you expect it [to be there] at a certain date,” Wilson said.
Besides Winair, the only other airline currently servicing Saba is Windward Express.
However, the charter service is too expensive to be a replacement for Winair’s cargo operations, Heilbron explained.
Wilson was more resigned. “We are accepting the new situation [because] it is easier than setting up a new arrangement,” she said. “I can’t just pause my business for a month.”
Certification crucial
The delays and rising expenses affecting Saba’s shipping companies can be viewed as the collateral damage of Winair’s recent efforts to become a bigger player in regional aviation.
In an interview earlier this year, Van de Velde told this newspaper that Winair was looking to deepen and expand its cooperation agreements with other carriers, citing these as crucial for the St. Maarten-based airline to thrive.
He also put forward the idea of a potential code-sharing arrangement with Royal Dutch Airlines KLM, noting that the Netherlands’ flag carrier had suspended its route to Barbados.
“Winair could efficiently operate these flights using our ATRs [aircraft] from St. Maarten,” Van de Velde said. “Yet, any collaboration requires Winair to obtain IOSA certification according to KLM’s standards.”
The importance of IOSA certification to Winair’s success was echoed in Van de Velde’s interview with this newspaper on Monday, but he also described recent pressure from international airlines to become certified.
“We work together, more and more, with international carriers like Air France, JetBlue, etc. And more and more these carriers, these airlines, they demand a certain ‘stamp of quality’,” he said. “A few years ago, they did not ask for IOSA certification, but now they do.”
IOSA certification in the region is low, and if successful, Winair would become only the second, behind the Trinidad-based Caribbean Airlines.
“Compared to all other airlines [in the region], our international cooperation is more crucial because we are in St. Maarten and all these international carriers operate here,” Van de Velde said, who pointed out that 50% of Winair’s passengers are connecting from international flights.
Before Winair started operating its own fleet of ATR-72 aircraft in 2023, the airline was not even eligible to become IOSA certified, as Winair’s de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otters are too small to qualify for certification.
However, flying the ATR-72 – which has enabled Winair to expand to Barbados, St. Lucia and St. Vincent as of this winter – has also put the issue of certification on the table.
“Companies like United, JetBlue, Air France, they don’t say, ‘Okay, for the ATR you need to be IOSA certified and for the Twin Otter, you are not,’” Van de Velde said. “It doesn’t work like that. They want you to be completely IOSA certified.”
Winair had been operating ATR-72s before 2023, but these were wet-leased from Air Antilles, which declared bankruptcy last year.
Poor communication
One of Saba’s shipping companies’ main grievances was that Winair had not properly informed them of its decision to halt cargo operations. While Wilson said she had been notified a few days before the change went into effect on August 31, Heilbron said she had not been told until after the fact.
They assert that if they had been duly informed in advance, they could have mitigated some of the current logistical issues.
Van de Velde told this newspaper that Winair had made the decision around the fourth week of July.
“And that was the moment we could have started to communicate. … We did informally call people to inform them, but the formal communication went out too late,” Van de Velde said. “One or two persons contacted me directly [about it last week]. Then I understood that our communication did not go well. I want to apologise for that. That’s not how it should be.”
