- Dutch Caribbean Airlines
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Dutch Caribbean Airlines 
IATA
K8ICAO
DCECallsign
DUTCH CARIBBEANFounded 2002 Hubs Hato International Airport Fleet size 15 Destinations 17 Company slogan Bridge to Curaçao Parent company DC Holding Headquarters Curaçao, Kingdom of the Netherlands Key people Mario Evertsz Website flydca.net Dutch Caribbean Airlines was an airline based in Curaçao, part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It was founded after the demise of Curaçao's first airline, Air ALM. Dutch Caribbean Airline began its operations smoothly but went downhill with different problems during its time in service.
Contents
History
Dutch Caribbean Airlines was actually established in 1964 as Air ABC (Air Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao) and the airline was later renamed to Antillianse Luchtvaart Maatchappij (ALM) to take over the services of the Caribbean division of KLM. In the year 2000, ALM Antillean Airlines had deteriorated to the point where it just couldn't be kept alive. Strong suspicions exist that fraud, corruption and theft by workers and management were going on and the airline had built up an enormous debt of almost fls340 Million (guilders) in the years since 1969, when the Antillean government had taken over the shares from KLM.
The airline was succeeded by Air ALM, which was owned by the same DC Holding that owned ALM Antillean Airlines and later Dutch Caribbean Airlines. The ownership of DC Holding [passed from the Antillean government to the Curaçao island government and was controlled by Fundashon DC Beheer (the "DC Beheer foundation"). It seems worker's rights were guaranteed by the Antillean government.
After an interlude that did not last longer than a couple of months, it seemed that Air ALM could not survive, and a similar construction was used to transfer the airline's assets once more, this time to Dutch Caribbean Airlines. The airline officially declared bankruptcy in 2002. The new director, Mario Evertsz, was to prepare the company for privatization in less than six months.
In Aruba and later on in other countries, the company was named Dutch Caribbean Express (DCE), because the company name DCA had already been registered. Between the end of ALM in 2000 and the near end of DCA in 2004, the personnel of the airline shrunk from 1000 workers to about 500 workers.
The Mid-Atlantic war
KLM's final joint activity with ALM/DCA was when KLM invested in the airline's new catering building. At the time KLM was still using Curaçao as the connecting hub for its South America-Europe flights, which was an extremely profitable operation with a traditional cooperation between KLM and ALM/DCA. But later on, DCA itself began competing with KLM on the Curaçao-Amsterdam flights with Holland based, Belgian Citybird. But Citybird went bankrupt and Sobelair (a division of Belgian Sabena) was followed up as DCA's partner.
Other airlines joined the fray, such as Holland based Air Holland. It also began flying Amsterdam-Curaçao with prices as low as fls245 guilders. DCA stopped dealing with travel agencies that sold the competing Air Holland tickets. Later on, Sobelair went bankrupt and DCA had no choice but to turn to Air Holland. DCA desperately tried contracting other charter companies, but had no such luck and the airline left passengers stranded in Amsterdam and Curaçao. The airline lacked the resources and money to fulfill their obligations.
KLM’s revenge
KLM now decided that it had to take revenge against DCA for betraying them and began to lower its prices and moved its South American stops to Bonaire, therefore ending the use of Hato International Airport as a hub. But KLM did not stop flying to Curaçao altogether, it kept on flying to Curaçao as a regular destination. But Bonaire itself is not benefitting as much as one would think since the island is stuck with the cost to extend its runway and airport building to suit the new KLM flights. Today, KLM still uses Bonaire as a hub for its South American flights and is in the process of using the new and improved Boeing 777 for its international flights to South America.
The demise
In the early years of 2000, a new airline was introduced in Curaçao, Divi Divi Air, an air commuter with daily flights between Bonaire and Curaçao and also offering charter flights between Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao and Venezuela. With the introduction of Divi Divi, DCA began its downfall, though still maintaining some of its operations. But in 2003, a new airline began flying between the ABC islands, as well as St Maarten, another DCA destination. BonairExel began competing against DCA and it operated under the Exel Aviation Group. Eventually DCA's partner out of desperation joined the Exel Group and was renamed HollandExel. When BonairExel began competing against DCA, DCA had to lower their prices to almost that of Divi Divi Air's level, and forced BonairExel to fly that cheaply as well.
While under Mario Evertsz's management, things rapidly grew even worse. Instead of preparing the airline for privatization, as he was instructed to do, DCA started the competition with KLM on the Curaçao Amsterdam route and began buying and leasing more and more aircraft. This led to the re-use of the Twin Otter and the acquisition of 4 leased DC9-30s. After the downfall of Sobelair and the Air Holland fiasco with Exel Aviation, the airline began leasing other longer range aircraft to fly their international routes. The airline leased a L-1011 and a B767 for their flights but that ended up throwing DCA off the cliff for good.
By 2004, things were so bad that the airline applied for several loans to keep the airline steady. The airline eventually got them and received fls37 million guilders that were used to enable the company to continue operating
In July 2004, only one DC9 was left in operation while the rest of its MD80 & DC9 aircraft were grounded, its Dash 8s were removed from its fleet and were replaced with the Twin Otters, and the 767s and L-1011 were returned to their original operators. Mario Evertsz resigned as DCA's director -without any announcement- but he did stay on as the director of Curaçao Airlines and Winair.
In October 2004, the airline finally collapsed and by then DCA had cost the government of Curaçao at least fls800 million guilders and likely much more. After the airlines demise, most of its aircraft were either sold to other operators (e.g. one Twin Otter was sent to Winair and one Dash 8 was sent to LIAT and the DC-9's were sold to Aserca Airlines), scrapped (e.g. one MD82 parked next to the hangar at the Curaçao airport) and others still awaiting their future.
Today, DCA has been replaced with Insel Air which is also an MD80 operator, while Divi Divi Air still operates the same fights under the same name and BonairExel has been reformed into Dutch Antilles Express. The DCA breakdown had almost led to the third government crisis in two years on the island of Curaçao.
Destinations
These are the destinations that were operated by "Dutch Caribbean Airlines" when the airline was in service:
Caribbean
- Aruba
- Dominican Republic
- Haiti
- Netherlands Antilles
- Trinidad & Tobago
Europe
- Germany
- Cologne (Cologne Bonn Airport)
- Netherlands
- Amsterdam (Amsterdam Schiphol Airport)
North America
South America
Fleet
During the transfer of the airline’s assets from Air ALM, the airline acquired some of the Air ALM aircraft and later on received other aircraft for its own.
Self owned aircraft
Dutch Caribbean Airlines Fleet Aircraft Total Passengers Registration Notes Bombardier Dash 8-311 2 50 PJ-DHE, PJ,DHI The Dash 8's were replaced later on with the Twin Otters. The registration PJ-DHE was later changed to PJ-DHL and was sitting on the General Aviation's ramp at Curaçao for over three years with continual run up tests. The aircraft has now left the island and is in service with LIAT along with PJ-DHI. De Havilland Canada Dash 6-300 Twin Otter 2 19 PJ-TOC, PJ-TOD The Twin Otters were the replacement aircraft for the "supposed" aging Dash 8's PJ-TOD was sold to Windward Island Airways (Winair) and has been leased to Curaçao's new regional airline Insel Air to replace the airline's Embraer 110-P1 Bandeirante when in maintenance or on leave for a C-Check Douglas DC-9-32 4 115 PJ-SNL, PJ-SNK, PJ-SNM, PJ-SNN The DC9's were all sold to Aserca Airlines, where they are still in service flying for Aserca. All of the aircraft have received new registrations and a new livery, complying with Aserca's color schemes. McDonnell Douglas MD-82 2 152 PJ-SEF, PJ-SEG After years of being parked next to the hangars of the airport, PJ-SEF sadly was towed away from the hangars at the Curaçao Airport to the shredder on August 1, 2008 and PJ-SEG is supposedly scrapped in Mexico. McDonnell Douglas MD-83 1 155 PJ-SEH Leased aircraft
When the airline began its downfall, it began creating alliances with other charter airlines. One by one these alliances were broken because of the allied airlines themselves had declared bankruptcy. When it seemed that the airline could not find a suitable airline to create an alliance with, the airline finally decided to declare bankruptcy. Here is the list for the leased aircraft:
Dutch Caribbean Airlines Leased Fleet Aircraft Total Passengers Registration Leased from Notes Boeing 767-204ER 1 181 TF-ATY Air Atlanta Icelandic Boeing 767-330ER 2 218 OO-SLR, OO-SLT Sabena (Sobelair) OO-SLT was repainted in the Dutch Caribbean Airlines livery, meanwhile OO-SLR stayed in its original Sobelair livery. Lockheed L-1011-500 1 234 CS-TMR Luzair CS-TMR is still operating for Luzair Aircraft names
While flying for ALM, all of the aircraft in their fleet had their own names; most of these names were adopted from names of tree types local to the islands. After ALM became DCA, usage of the aircraft names were dropped, except for the MD80's. However, employees continued to make use of the name among themselves.
- PJ-SNK
- Kiyo
- PJ-SNL
- Liyo
- PJ-SNM
- Miyo
- PJ-SNN
- Niyo
Here is the list of the names of the MD80's:
Dutch Caribbean Airlines McDonnell Douglas MD80 names Aircraft Registration Name McDonnell Douglas MD-82 PJ-SEF Flamboyant McDonnell Douglas MD-82 PJ-SEG Kibrahacha McDonnell Douglas MD-83 PJ-SEH Watapana The airline leased the Lockheed L-1011 from Luzair and Boeing 767 from Air Atlanta Icelandic after a struggle with most of its MD80 aircraft grounded with technical difficulties and the collapse of Sobelair.
External links
Lists relating to aviation General Aircraft (manufacturers) · Aircraft engines (manufacturers) · Airlines (defunct) · Airports · Civil authorities · Museums · Registration prefixes · Rotorcraft (manufacturers) · TimelineMilitary Accidents/incidents Records Categories:- Defunct airlines of the Netherlands Antilles
- Defunct airlines of Curaçao
- Airlines established in 2001
- Airlines disestablished in 2004
- Airlines of the Netherlands Antilles
- Airlines of Curaçao
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