TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Flight Delays and testing

OK - I'm sitting here in Boston under a foot of snow with all flights out of Logan postponed. I'm wondering what will happen if the time frame on your testing expires because of flight delays. If you got a test within the 5 day window, but your fight is delayed because of weather, and your test results now are six days old, what do you do? The airlines want to put you on a fight tomorrow or the next day, but that doesn't give you enough time to get re-tested. You would still have the paper work allowing you entrance, but is it still valid?

Since this is the first storm of the season, I'm sure this issue hasn't come up yet. I'm just curious what other TTOLers would do. I think I'd just get on the plane and try to work things out when I got to Saint Martin.

I don't suppose anyone in the SXM government is considering this and coming up with a policy?

That is a good question, Tim. The thing is, your authorization to fly I THINK would be linked to a particular flight at a particular time. So, if for example, your flight out is delayed 24 hours, I think you have to get a new authorization to fly and if your test is now too old?? I'm thinking they won't give you authorization to fly, so you won't be able to 'work out' anything once your arrive. Don't know. Perhaps this is a situation where they would re-test you (at your own expense of course) on arrival. But like I said, I'm afraid you won't be able to get the authorization to fly to begin with.

There have to be a fair number of people in your situation, based on this storm on the East Coast. While I sympathize with your situation, I have to say that I'm glad I'm not there in those piles of snow!!

One suggestion--Dr Soc from the radio station in SXM seems to have a really good relationship with Ludmilla de Weaver, who is the Tourism Minister. Maybe if you contact him, he might be able to find out for you?

Excellent point but I'm sure SXM will have it figured out by spring (sarcasm)

...and I was only worried about a storm closing the drive through testing sites....like today. Now I can add a flight delay/cancellation

Edit: looks like the BOS-SJU-SXM flight is delayed by an hour and 29 minutes assuming that's the flight

boucharda--I also thought Tim was talking about flying today or tomorrow, etc, but he said in another thread that he is flying right after the first of the year.

If anyone here is flying the next few days and have experience with this, please post your experience.

The SXM EHAS authorization form I received shows the date of arrival, flight number and airline and port of embarkation. So would think it would only be valid for that travel date and time.
Might want to have a 15 minute antigen test site on standby just in case of weather delays.
Good luck.

Good plan - but if the airports are closed, will the testing centers be open?

Tim--did you try to contact the SXM government with this question? If so, did you get a response?

I'm not sure who to contact and how to contact them

There's contact information on the EHAS page. We contacted them via email when David was declined with the identical testing information and results as mine, which was approved. He received an approval shortly thereafter. However, friends with a similar problem waited twelve hours for a response, so who knows....

You might try to contact the email that was previously posted here, regarding people who were denied permission to enter..