Mr. Burney el Hage, Commissioner of Tourism and Economic Development and Ms. Candice Kimmel of TCB-NA represented Bonaire at the 19th World Route Development Forum on October 5-8, 2013, held at the Las Vegas Convention Center.
World Routes is the world’s largest forum for airlines, airports and destinations to engage. It provides the opportunity for destinations and airlines to build relationships, discuss route strategies and negotiate future routes. World Routes is unique in that carriers from all of Bonaire’s three overseas markets were in attendance. Bonaire had scheduled meetings with Avianca Airlines, COPA Airlines, Arke Fly, Air Canada, WestJet Airlines, United Airlines, U.S. Airways, Southwest Airlines, Delta Airlines and Allegiant Airlines. During these meetings, the carriers’ plans for future Bonaire flying in 2014 and beyond were discussed. As the airlines are in the process of scheduling planes for late fall and winter 2014-2015, the timing was optimum to make formal presentations for increased capacity or for new flying to Bonaire.
United Airlines, in particular, was very supportive of the cooperative model for partnership represented by our September Sellabration, whereby Bonaire covered the opportunity cost of leaving the plane on the Bonaire route during a low traffic season and then launched a robust, and very successful, private and public sector marketing campaign to fill the flight. The successful completion of the September Sellabration resulted in United’s YTD performance to Bonaire from Houston being up 5.1%. United welcomed the request to implement this type of a partnership again in Houston and is reviewing Bonaire’s proposal to extend this approach to the Newark market next year.