Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
S TATIA N EWS
V OLUME 1, ISSUE 15 S EPTEMBER 29, 2009
Talkin’Blues with
Hemmie van Xan-
ten,
page 3
Press Conference
with Mr. Hooker,
page 3
Aviation Pioneers
exhibition, page 5,6
Statia Tourism
Week, page 7
harbor where the Terminal pier is now, because the wa‐
ter there is “terminal” water. The following question was
asked by Mrs. Lopes: “How can Statia attract well educa‐
ted Statians that live abroad”. Mr. Hooker replied that we
even have well educated Statians on Statia that do not
have a suitable job. There are jobs and nobody seems to
want to have them. Government will try to contact
“Friends of Statia” and advertise more. About the division
of tasks: Mr. Hooker said that on Sept. 16, the executive
council had a meeting with Mr. Kamp and some kwartier‐
makers about the division of tasks. He showed us the
booklet with all these tasks and said that we have to be
realistic; if we do not have the capacity, it’s better to
Mercedes Lopes (GIS) with Mr. Hooker leave it in Dutch hands. He said that Statia does not want
mining, copyright, price control and branding in Dutch
Tuesday Sept 29, Government Guesthouse, press confe‐ hands. About Justice and Police, the negotiations are
rence with commissioner Roy Hooker. going on at this very moment. About education: There is
Some of the things Mr. Hooker said are on the frontpage of no protocol about the language yet for the secondary
this Statianews. Other things were: Harbor masterplan is to education. Primary education will have English as the
make an extended arm on the existing pier to make the language of instruction with Dutch as a strong second
breakwater calmer. Most of the SEI money will be used for language.
the harbor. It might be impossible to make a commercial
P AGE 4 O PINION Sept 29, 2009 S TATIA N EWS
C.C.A. Kinfgisher, the planes Rémy de Haenen flew
P AGE 6 L OCAL N EWS Sept 29, 2009 S TATIA N EWS
In front of the Gebe office
The theme was: “Tourism Diversity and Globaliza‐
tion”. The students made field trips to the construc‐
tion site of Knippenga, to Gebe, to the Labour Office,
to Eutel, to the health department, to the Nustar
Energy Terminal, to Green Blend to the Congo pre‐
serve and to Berkels’ family farm.
Schoolchildren visiting the Congo Preserve
Schoolchildren visiting Eutel
The children made presentations that were exhibited
in the Tourist Office.
This presentation about transportation was made
by the Golden Rock school
P AGE 8 L OCAL N EWS Sept 29, 2009 S TATIA N EWS
A IR S TATIA
About a year ago I, along with my wife Shelley and recover the purchase cost in a reasonable time. But
Erik Ward, formed Statia Air Services NV with the the total traffic between St. Maarten and Statia is
intention of starting a new airline, Air Statia, to pro‐ presently not sufficient to support such a service.
vide a more reasonable cost for travel to St. Maarten.
Unfortunately, after considerable work at our own In my opinion, what we need is a more economical
expense, we have abandoned the attempt. We have air service similar to what DiviDivi offers between
now closed the Air Statia website and are in the proc‐ Curacao and Bonaire, at about half the price that
ess of dissolving Statia Air Services NV. We found we pay for a Winair ticket to St. Maarten. But I
several difficulties: don't think that we are likely to see such a service
started until conditions change. Possibly some day
1. The fees at PJIA (Prinses Juliana International Air‐ The Netherlands will be in a position to subsidize
port in St. Maarten, ed.) are among the highest in the such a service to offset the PJIA fees, but I doubt
Caribbean and essentially make it impossible to have that this would be a popular idea in the present
a low fare service from Statia. economic conditions.
2. The close relationship between PJIA, Winair and Best regards,
the St. Maarten island government make starting a George Works
competing airline a risky venture.
3. The Netherlands has not taken over regulation of
air line companies on Statia as we originally ex‐
pected, so at the moment it is still necessary to ob‐ J ACKIE
tain an economic permit from the Antilles govern‐
ment to operate an airline. The Antilles requires that
the airline be majority owned by native Antilleans, Black and Gold
and that it not provide "excess service" to service
already available. Fast and Bold
Paper nest
4. The changing economic environment has made it
difficult to raise investment capital to purchase air‐
Stinging pest
craft, build a maintenance hanger, and so forth. The Flitting about
only investment money that we were able to raise Coralita nectar
was our own.
Your vector
Before forming Statia Air Services we also investi‐ Annoying wasp
gated the possibility of a regular ferry service. Fast
Catamaran service to Phillipsburg is certainly possi‐
ble, and used ferries are available at reasonable One clap
prices. Unfortunately, the relatively rough seas be‐ Carefully aimed
tween Statia and St. Maarten, especially in the win‐
ter, would require a fairly large vessel so that the
passengers did not become seasick. These larger ves‐ YOU DEAD JACKIE
sels are capable of seating upwards of 200 passen‐
gers and typically have two or more 2000 horse‐
power diesel engines for propulsion. They burn a lot
of diesel fuel. It would not be economical to run
them with just a few tens of passengers, they would
need to be at least half full. And they would need to
make at least a round trip a day, or preferably two, to
P AGE 10 S PORTS Sept 29, 2009 S TATIA N EWS
Bart Kusters thinking of ways how to get the bags to Rick Kusters with a new jacket, Randy and Romario checking
Statia. the bags.
Thanks JAC! Hopefully the winter in Scheveningen will not be too cold!
Ready to play against St. Maarten in the new shirts. Team manager Paul Fletcher and head of the board Cleford
Williams very proud to wear the JAC jackets.
P AGE 11 A NNOUNCEMENTS Sept 29, 2009 S TATIA N EWS