TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Package 1A expansion at SXM?

I just saw a post on Instagram from sxmairport about the Package 1A expansion? They specifically mentioned the “Hurricane Shelter” bar. Anyone have any other details?

I just posted a link to the facebook page. This is in the lower departure area and was being worked on when I departed in Nov.

PJIA FB PAGE

There yesterday. Bar set up in new gate area room for gates 8-10. Did help with the overcrowding.

More room is certainly welcome. We departed in August and it was just short of insanity down there.

My understanding is this may be temporary and as the reconstruction progresses, this area may disappear.

Really? It didn't look temporary when we departed last week, the bar area in particular. Unfortunately the bar wasn't yet open when we departed from Gate 10; would definitely have made the wait more comfortable!

That is what one of the airport employees told me, but they may be mistaken.

So, I assume that this is a second bar, in addition to Taloula Flights upstairs? Anyone know if there is wifi at the new bar? There are a bunch of people sitting at the bar, but can't really see the pic well enough to see if people appear to be online or not.

There's actually wifi in the airport now, at least there was a couple of weeks ago.

Oh, ok, thanks. There wasn't, as of October. I know they said several months ago that it was almost ready, but on island time, apparently.

Couldn’t get WiFi on my iPhone in departures Saturday. Customer service said people with iPhones were having difficulty connecting. I do not know if anyone had WiFi but my group of 4 with an iphone each couldn’t connect.

As far as a second bar I only saw one in the new gate room. There used to be a bar upstairs to the right walking in the departure lounge but it wasn’t there Saturday. Had drinks there in March.

Steve--OK, that sucks. I liked Taloula Flights. Seems like they could use two bars there, to me.. The lack of connecting to wifi also sucks. Taloula Flights had their own wifi service.

We had 30 minutes of sponsored free wifi at the airport. After that we would have had to pay.

Huh. OK. Which leads me back to the question of whether the bar has internet or not. Last time we were at Taloula Flights for well over an hour..