The years of successful cooperation between Corendon and KLM on the Curaçao route are coming to an end.
From November 2023, Corendon will fly non-stop between Amsterdam and Curaçao five times a week with a state-of-the-art Airbus A350-900. Corendon has concluded a wet-lease agreement for this with the Spanish airline World2Fly. In the period from mid-June to mid-September there are even six flights per week. The Airbus A350-900 can accommodate 432 passengers, so that approximately 220.000 passengers can fly to and from Curaçao with Corendon each year.
“It is with a heavy heart that we say goodbye to KLM, with whom we had a wonderful strategic partnership for ten years. But with the huge investments we have made in Curaçao in new resorts, we must be sure of sufficient flight capacity at a competitive price. We have found a very good partner in World2Fly. Both the Iberostar Group and Corendon are successful family businesses. We speak the same language and in my long career I have rarely seen such an extensive collaboration agreed so quickly. I am confident that we will make it a great success.”
Corendon and Curaçao are now inextricably linked. Every year, approximately 45.000 Dutch people book their holiday to Curaçao with Corendon. Half of them stay in Corendon's own resorts, the other half at partner hotels. In the past five years, Corendon has invested almost €150 million in its own hotels on the island: the five-star Corendon Mangrove Beach Resort (399 rooms) and the four-star Livingstone Jan Thiel Resort (204 rooms and villas). In December this year, The Rif at Mangrove Beach (385 rooms), just like the Mangrove Beach Resort, will open a five-star all inclusive, with even more luxury.
“We are extremely proud that we can now officially announce our own flights to Curaçao. We have taken the island to our hearts, we have settled in Curaçao and we are committed to further expanding the mutual relationship with a focus on the long term. We already did this with our holiday offer and our own hotels, but from November also with our own flights. Corendon has become known for always offering a lot of holiday for a competitive price and we can now deliver that even better. I look forward to our first flight on November 3.”
With a total of almost a thousand of its own hotel rooms, it is essential for Corendon to ensure sufficient flight capacity. In addition, it is very important for the residents of Curaçao that there are sufficient flights on the Curaçao-Amsterdam route, because this ensures competitive prices. With the new Cordon flights, capacity on this route will increase by almost 30%. Corendon will soon be one of the largest employers in Curaçao. In addition to the 800 jobs in the hotels and at the Contact Center, dozens of Cabin Attendants are also being recruited in Curaçao. The intention is to use Papiamento as the working language on board in addition to Dutch and English.
World2Fly
The Spanish airline World2Fly was founded in 2020 and is headquartered in Palma de Mallorca. World2Fly is part of the leading Iberostar Group which operates some 120 resort hotels, mainly in Spain and the Caribbean. In addition, the group has its own tour operator and under the name World2Meet DMCs (destination management companies) in many tourist destinations. Corendon has been working with World2Meet for many years for its holidays to Spain and has also been the largest tour operator partner of the Iberostar hotels for the Netherlands and Belgium for several years.
Source: Corendon
