The Beautiful Island: The II Caribbean Aviation Meetup

Caribbean vibes throughout

What a better setting for an aviation conference than a proper "aviation enthusiast paradise"?

Airplanes of all sorts were landing constantly at globally-renowned Maho Beach, Sint Maarten, in view of the speakers and attendees that for three days took over the Sonesta Ocean Point Resort to debate the main issues faced by the aviation industry in the Caribbean.

The Caribbean Aviation Meetup is an annual industry-wide conference that gathers a broad range of aviation industry players -  airlines, airports, aviation services companies - tavel professionals, institutions and academics from across the region and beyond (this edition even counted with some participants coming from as far as New Zealand!)

The Conference takes place within sight of the famous Maho Beach approach

I had personally the chance to take to the stage on the first day of the conference, together with a bunch of colleagues, well-renowned names of aviation journalism, such as Seth Miller, Kathryn Creedy, Robert Mark and Chris Kjelgaard. We shared our views about how is it like reporting about an industry as exciting as aviation and enjoyed answering quite a lot of questions from the audience, as well!

The main conference hall - another smaller room was also busy with parallel sessions

The programme of the conference was really packed with action, including an outdoors award-gala for the Sapphire Pegasus Awards and two simultaneous session tracks running in parallel during the day.

You can get an idea of the programme and the type of topics discussed here.

But also action up in the air (this was an aviation conference after all!) with Tropic Ocean Airways, a Florida-based seaplane operator, bringing one of its Cessna Caravan seaplanes down to St.Martin for demo flights (a story coming up soon on this!)

Although not on the water (it takes over 3 hours of maintenance to get the aircraft ready after every time it touches the water), some of the participants were able to enjoy a short but intense seaplane experience, flying all the way to the Dutch island of St.Eustatius (aka "Statia") for a touch-and-go landing and take-off...and, of course, some panoramic views of this tiny speck of land in the Caribbean and its magnificent volcano!

So, if you are interested in what is going on in the Caribbean aviation industry, or wish to explore business opportunities in the region, note it down in your agenda, you can not miss it out!.

The III Caribbean Aviation Meetup is expected to take place in June 2018!