Based on the first quarter of this year Bonaire had an increase of 7.6% in passengers coming from Newark and 14.8% in passengers coming from Houston.
From these numbers it can be concluded that the strategic marketing was successful. This had to do with new collaboration between TCB and US travel agencies and also the focus on Boston where Bonaire participated in the Boston Globe. This fair reached travelers traveling on the United flights from Newark and Houston. On social platforms, Bonaire is running a digital marketing campaign that focuses on US areas with the most potential. Different press and social influencers will be visiting the island and ensuring through this way more increase in these two flights.
There was a temporary decrease from passengers coming from Atlanta with Delta of 13.9%. The decrease is a consequence that this year Delta didn’t have a third flight during Spring break, which we did have last year. Also Easter was in April this year (second quarter) and in 2016 this was in March (first quarter). This means that it might be possible that this will show an increase in the second quarter. Comparing the previous year passengers traveling during Easter holidays reflected in the first quarter. The first quarter of 2017 had 12 Saturdays and in 2016 it had 13. This also has a disadvantage when comparing the amount of passengers coming to Bonaire in the first quarter. But it is expected that the Easter Bounce will reflect a positive increase in the second quarter of this year and will compensate in total at the end of the year.
We have to state that the airlines made use of a dynamic strategy, when the demand increased they used bigger planes to accommodate more passengers. Delta used two planes with 3 different configurations, 738 with 160 seats and 757 with 180 and 199 seats. United used two different planes from the model 737, the 738 with 166 seats and 739 with 179 seats. While Newark lowered the amount of flights to Bonaire it still surpassed this year’s amount of passengers coming to Bonaire in comparison with last year from 1734 to 1866 passengers.
It can be concluded that it is necessary to expand airline sources with more flights from North America when seeing the high amount of passengers on the different flights.
