Air Caraïbes

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Air Caraïbes Airbus A330

Air Caraïbes is the regional airline of the French Caribbean which comprises the overseas departments of France: Guadeloupe and Martinique. The airline is based in Pointe-à-Pitre in Guadeloupe. It operates scheduled and charter services and now also operates transatlantic flights to Paris using Airbus A330 aircraft. Its main base is Pointe-à-Pitre International Airport, with a hub at Le Lamentin Airport, Fort-de-France is 92% owned chairman Jean-Paul Dubreuil’s family.

1 Code Data
2 History
3 Services
4 Fleet
5 External links
6 References

[edit] Code Data

IATA Code: TX
ICAO Code: FWI
Callsign: French West ^[1]

[edit] History

Air Caraïbes started out of the necessity to have a regional airline responding to the needs of the French Caribbean territories. The company was founded in July 2000 through the merger of various local airlines (Air Guadeloupe, Air Martinique, Air St Barthélémy, Air St Martin). In 2002, the company flew 445,000 passengers and earned 68 Millions Euros in revenues. It is part of the Carib Sky Alliance, an airline alliance which comprises in addition to Air Caraïbes the following airlines: Leeward Islands Air Transport and Winair (Windward Islands Airways). It started services to Paris in December 2003. The airline is owned by Groupe Dubreuil (90%) and Departement de Guadeloupe (10%) and has 375 employees (at January 2005).

[edit] Services

Air Caraïbes operates the following services (at January 2005):

Domestic scheduled destinations: Cayenne, Fort-de-France, La Desirade, Marie Galante, Paris, Pointe-à-Pitre, Saint-Barthélemy, Saint Martin and Les Saintes.

International scheduled destinations: Belém, Canouan Island, Havana, Port-au-Prince, Santo Domingo, Saint Lucia, St Maarten, and Union Island.

[edit] Fleet

The Air Caraïbes fleet includes the following aircraft (at August 2006) ^[2] :

Other aircraft:

5 Cessna 208B Grand Caravan

A further ATR 72-500 has been ordered for November 2005 delivery to replace the current Embraer ERJ-145 MP. ^[3]

The airline has signed a letter of intent to purchase two larger capacity Airbus A330-300 aircraft to replace its two current Airbus A330-200 aircraft, that it has on lease from ILFC with purchased aircraft. The new aircraft will be delivered in November 2007 and June 2008. ^[3]It is preparing to take delivery of its 3rd Airbus A330, this will be the 1st Airbus A330-300, the previous 2 aircraft already in service are Airbus A330-200.

One new EMBRAER 175, one new EMBRAER 190 has been ordered, to replace one ERJ 145. ^[3]