bran, The initial article was published in the Daily Herald on April 1. This letter is dated April 9 so you have an 8 day difference that I really doubt will make any difference in the grand scheme of things. I personally have no idea when the airport will open, I just wanted to reinforce the article in the paper with the "official" letter as some on here have tickets for May that have not been cancelled yet and some seem to think the US airlines will govern flights going back into SXM. I highly doubt that.

I wish I had the answers for you. Is July 1 possible? I hope so but I would not make a huge bet on it at this point. I saw things unravel very quick when this all started. In the matter of 18 hours, a LOT changed and changed drastically. I highly doubt anything will be put back online with regard to the airport, tourism and cruises in a hasty manner. Just like here in the US, you screw up "opening" things back up and this reignites, you likely have a much worse problem and dilemma than you started with.

Regarding cruise ships, I think onshore spending has been dwindling for some time. An exception would be a person on a cruise who has an existing relationship with a business, as in jewelry store. The bigger loss with be the port fees to the harbor/government and probably some of the politicians missing out on what they would otherwise pocket from "deals" they had made with the harbor or others "in the business".