New flight from Holland It doesn't really much affect folks here on TTOL, but this airline will start flying to SXM, as of tomorrow. I think perhaps this is a new plane for SXM also, the Dreamliner? Not sure any other airline is flying them to SXM.

I think that airline already has flights to SXM but perhaps has changed names? I am thinking the former Corsair? Not sure but it does look familiar. The paint scheme looks familiar for sure. The aircraft is new.

I don't know, not familiar with that airline. Corsair used to fly 747's, but I don't know where they flew from.

It looks like TUI has an alliance with Corsair and yes, they did fly 747's to SXM. I am pretty sure I have seen the tail logo before while on the island.

The airline was formed in 2007 by the merger of Hapag Lloyd Flug and Hapag Lloyd Express as a branch of TUI Travel. The airline codes of its predecessor are still in use, and the former callsign YELLOWCAB remained in use until it was changed to TUIJET on 24 September 2010.

In the second quarter of 2007, the load factor was at about 79%, after about 92% in the year before. Subsequently, the company closed its Leipzig/Halle and Bremen bases. On 29 January 2008, plans were announced to merge TUIfly with Eurowings and Germanwings (the Lufthansa low-cost brands) into a joint and independent holding company, but were withdrawn as talks turned out to be unsuccessful.[3]

TUI Travel confirmed on 27 March 2009 that it had sealed a strategic partnership with Air Berlin that would see Tui Travel take a 20% stake in Air Berlin, and Air Berlin 20% in TUIfly. Due to regulatory matters, this was changed to 9.9%.[4] Air Berlin will also wet-lease 17 aircraft from TUIfly and take over all of TUIfly's city connections. TUI will focus on serving the charter market with 21 aircraft of the remaining fleet.[5] From 25 October 2009, all German domestic flights previously operated by TUIfly were taken over by Air Berlin, as well as all flights to Austria, Italy and Croatia.[6] Most of these flights are still operated by TUIfly aircraft, but are marketed by Air Berlin

Hi. That looks like it was copied and pasted from somewhere?

If you are at Sunset Beach Bar, I'd much rather see the four-engine double-decker 747 land than the twin-engine 787.

They copied it from Wikipedia.

For sure for the vast majority of people, but some people are real plane geeks, who like seeing all kinds of different planes.

Yes, technically the Dreamliner is the Boeing 787, the newest and most advanced airliner flying. There are 3 variants (two currently in service). The B787 was officially designed to replace the B767 but it stacks up more clearly in passenger capacity and range to the Airbus A330 and the dash 8 version is right in the wheel house of the B757-300 which still frequents SXM quite often.

TUI is currently something like the seventh largest operator of the B787. The largest U.S. operators will be United followed by American.

There are several ways to distinguish a B787 from legacy aircraft, the wing tips sweep up rather being "cranked" up, the engine nacelles are scalloped (jagged), the passenger windows are noticeably larger and higher on the fuselage and the cockpit windows are curved to match the fuselage shape.

It is said that 90% of the people that fly the B787 would go out of their way to book the type on future flights.

Yes Carol, I am one of those geeks...worked for the largest supplier of materials for these things for 38 years.

twice I have gone to their website after seeing the article in the Herald. I can't find any place that says it is flying to SXM...and that logo is also Thomson out of the UK. I thought maybe I could use them originating in Europe someplace

It's on their Netherlands-based site:

http://www.tui.nl/vliegtickets/

TUI is the company that bought Sunsail and the Moorings, as well as a whole lot of other travel companies. I believe they are now the world's largest travel company. They are German based and fly charters all over the world, resorts, yacht charters and the rest.

About half of what you said there sailed clear over my head (pun intended!!!) <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Laugh.gif" alt="" />, but I figured the 'geeks' would be interested in this news.. <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Smile.gif" alt="" />

Ceremony today for first flight ...if anyone happens to be in the area and wonders what is going on.

First dreamliner flights. Cool airplane. My daughter flew in an A380, the giant double-decker, LAX to Heathrow a few weeks ago. I doubt one of those could get in and out of SXM.

You're correct. I read on Airbus' website that it requires a runway of 3km minimum in ideal conditions of temp and wind for take off and SXM is only 2.3km long, so no chance of seeing one there.