TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin AF and KLM Repatriation Flights for June and July

PJIA posted the following information on FB. There are no details on who can travel, but the post does say that the flights will arrive EMPTY.

Repatriation is defined as the return of someone to their own country. And what has happened already with some flights here.

Yes, inbound empty, outbound with passengers who wish to be repatriated.

Surprised there is even that much need for these flights now, as I would have thought most everyone who wanted to return to Holland or France would have done so already..

SXM may not be the only stop on the flights. For example, the routing for KLM789 tomorrow is AMS-SXM-CUR-AMS.

There may be passengers being repatriated to Curaçao on the inbound flight. I don’t think that SXM is accepting repatriated passengers at the moment, but I may be wrong about that.

https://www.curacaochronicle.com/post/local/klm-to-repatriate-residents-to-curacao-on-june-6/

It is typical that KLM flies here to Curacao before the return to Holland. In this instance will pick up more expats to take home. The plane will arrive here empty as posted above and no one will be allowed to disembark in Curacao..

I read that the reason they do that is to refuel and take on passengers as they don't want to have full tanks taking off in SXM to clear the mountain. At least that is when they were flying 747's.

Perhaps some of these are people who always leave the island for low/hurricane season?

They filled a plane load of US folks yesterday. Most of our winter folks are usually gone by this time. Every US expat plane that has come here we lost more and more neighbors. And it's hurricane season.

OK

Lucky Air France crews get an overnight in Paradise. Work, work, work, for the KLM crew. Maybe the plane isnt going nonstop to schiphol, maybe it is sleeping in Hato.

With a plane full of passengers?

Well then, work,work, work for KLM. ✈️✈️✈️😀😂😊😉😇🤣🦜✈️

They definitely have to bring some extra crew then if heading straight back to Amsterdam.

AF 498 should be landing at SXM shortly. According to the flight schedule, it is expected to overnight in SXM, continue to SDQ (Santo Domingo) tomorrow afternoon as AF 499, and return to Paris tomorrow night.

4 of our friends from France that stay where we stay will be flying home July 6th. Its not on that schedule here though. I wonder if they have the date right?
They felt safer there than going earlier. One couple is in their eighties the other mid sixties but the mid sixties couple both of their children & spouses live in st Martin now & 1 granddaughter. Their daughter is a nurse at a school & one son in law is fireman. They will return to st Martin in January as will we all being well.
Lovely people. Hope they can be safe upon returning to France.