WILLEMSTAD — Canadian airline company WestJet landed at Hato Airport yesterday for the first time. As from this week WestJet will perform a charter flight from Toronto to Curaçao every Sunday for Thomas Cook with a Boeing 737. A small welcome reception was held after the landing.

WestJet took over the charter flights from Sunquest, which Thomas Cook used since 2003. According to Robert Palmer, manager communications of WestJet, who held a short speech, the figures of the bookings are already looking good. Each flight also has single seats available enabling Curaçao citizens to fly to Toronto as well.

Aruba

WestJet also flies from Toronto to Aruba since May. However, Curaçao needn’t fear competition, said a WestJet employee. “There are enough Canadians and Curaçao has more nature and is less commercial than Aruba. There is certainly a big market for the many nature lovers in Canada.” According to Jeannette Bonet, member of the supervisory council of the Curaçao Tourism Development Foundation (CTDF), other Canadian tour operators are also interested in Curaçao, including SunWing. Air Canada currently has a weekly flight in the winter season. Curaçao is the 78^th destination for WestJet, the second largest airline company of Canada. The flight departs at 9:15 from Toronto Pearson and arrives on Curaçao at 14:30. The return flight leaves at 15:15. Apart from Curaçao, WestJet added the destinations Antigua & Barbuda and Costs Rica yesterday and today. In Canada, the company flies to 30 national destinations.