Corendon to offer roundtrip flights between Netherlands and Curacao for below €600

Travel agency Corendon will begin offering its own flights to Curacao from November instead of booking customers on KLM flights. By the end of the year, Corendon will have three hotels on the Dutch Caribbean island, and it wants to ensure enough flight capacity to get travelers there. Tickets can be booked from Wednesday and will start at 299 euros one-way and 598 euros return. Prices will rise during the high season in the first quarter of next year.

The first flight operated by Corendon will happen on Friday, November 3. Two-thirds of the tickets will be reserved for travelers who booked a trip through Corendon, and the rest will be loose tickets available to anyone. Tickets bought separate require an additional fee for checked baggage, and may require an extra fee for reserving a specific seat in advance. The budget airline also offers seats with additional legroom.

It puts the company directly at odds with holiday operator TUI, and also Dutch airline KLM, which has been Corendon's partner to the Caribbean island. Round-trip holidays in November on KLM start at about 770 euros including booking fees and not including baggage or a seat choice, according to the airline's website. Ticket prices in the same month start at 850 euros on TUI's website, also without seat selection or baggage.

“It is with a heavy heart that we say goodbye to KLM, with whom we had a wonderful strategic partnership for ten years,” Corendon CEO Steven van der Heijden said. “But with the huge investments we have made in Curacao in new resorts, we must be sure of sufficient flight capacity at a competitive price.”

Initially, Corendon will fly from the Netherlands to Curacao and back five times a week, increasing to six times in the high season. The Corendon flights, with no stopovers, will happen on “super modern” Airbus A350-900 planes leased from the Spanish airline World2Fly. They have 432 seats each, so the company can fly about 220,000 travelers to the island annually.

According to Corendon, the A350-900 is one of the world's most modern, quietest, and most economical long-haul aircraft. “By also flying non-stop with this aircraft, the average CO2 emissions per passenger will be by far the lowest of all flights between the Netherlands and Curacao.” the travel company said.