From left, Hans van de Velde, Kenneth Romer and Trevor Sadler on stage with Aaron Karp (far right) at Routes Americas 2025.
Airline leaders in the Caribbean are calling for tax reforms and policy changes, warning that excessive fees are making regional travel prohibitively expensive and limiting economic opportunities.
During a panel session at Routes Americas 2025, the debate focused on how high taxation on airline tickets—sometimes exceeding the base fare—impacts both tourism and inter-island travel for residents.
“Our team reached out to me with regard to a customer who received a free ticket from us, paying nothing for the airfare,” said Trevor Sadler, CEO of interCaribbean Airways. “And the lady thought there was a big mistake, because how can the cost to her be $200, which was just taxes? She didn't believe it.”
Sadler pointed to another case where the airfare itself was $110, but the taxes were $120, illustrating how government-imposed fees have inflated ticket prices to the point where travel within the region is discouraged.
Hans van de Velde, CEO of Sint Maarten-based Winair, acknowledged that governments see aviation taxes as a reliable revenue source, particularly from international visitors. However, he argued that regional residents should not bear the same tax burden as tourists.
“I can understand many governments making the choice to have high taxes because the international customer is willing to pay,” van de Velde said. “But for the locals, is there a way to tax them less?”
He pointed to Bonaire’s model, where tourists pay a separate entry tax rather than having those fees embedded in airfares. “If you enter the country, whether you stay there for four hours or for 40 days, you pay $90 as a tourist,” he said. “But it’s not in the airfare. It’s outside. And a local pays about $15. So they distinguish between international arrivals and local arrivals.”
Winair, he added, has been involved in a regional initiative to lower taxes on certain intra-Caribbean routes, which led to an increase in local travel. “We would immediately see it led to quite some extra volume,” he said. “So there are several experiments in the region that show it is possible.”
Sadler questioned whether the tax revenue collected from aviation is being reinvested into airport improvements or whether it simply disappears into general government funds. He added that some airport privatization has also led to increased fees, as operators seek returns on their investments.
Van de Velde, however, was blunt about the issue. “To be honest, I don’t know what governments do with these taxes,” he said. “I do see some pretty sad airports in the region where clearly it has not been invested in.”
Van de Velde also criticized government interference in airline operations. “I am completely stupefied by the fact that we have prime ministers of countries who talk on radio shows about aviation and running airlines,” he said. “That’s going on in the Caribbean. Your goal is to run a country, not to run an airline, because you don’t know anything about airlines.”
He argued that government protectionism has led to weak national airlines that eventually fail. “It has exactly the opposite effect of what you want to reach, because it creates weak airlines that go bankrupt.”
Sadler called for a more unified approach to Caribbean aviation, with harmonized policies and standardized taxation structures across the region. “The Caribbean is marketed as one destination, but when it comes to air travel, we act like 20 different countries,” he said. “If we could take a little bit of that [regional cooperation] to government to show and share, how can we become more cohesive?”
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