Forecast becomes a reality at the airport
Quantity of passenger arrivals drops by 13% for first two months of 2006
Airport director is very disappointed with the results!
Bon Dia Aruba
3/28/2006

ORANJESTAD – The first two months of the year 2006 are not going too well for the airport. This is in terms of the quantity of passengers that arrive to our island. And the numbers confirm the worries of the airport manager Peter Steinmetz who points to the numbers being in the negative double digits. ‘January and February are disappointing’ Steinmetz said.

The first 6 months of last years, things were going very well compared to the previous year, but after a series of negative news started there was a drop in passengers. Now there is talk of negative growth of passengers. ‘This is disappointing for sure’, Steinmetz continued to say. And things don’t look much better. But at this time it is difficult to estimate how things will go. ‘We have an indication that the month of March will be a little better’, Steinmetz said, but he cannot say with certainty what this means.

According to the airport director, everything depends on two things.

The publicity that Aruba will conduct to rectify its image after the disappearance of Natalee Holloway, and the other issue is the increase in the hotel rates, that from last year is also a fact. He considers that hotel rates were increased too much.

‘I am confident that AHATA knows what’s happening and that they know what they have to do about it’, Steinmetz said.