After some delay in port arrangements, tourists bound for Anguilla, but having missed the regular ferry service by arriving late in St. Maarten, can now access their Anguilla destination via an after-hours ferryboat to the island as before.
The necessary arrangements were agreed to in St. Maarten between representatives of both island Governments on Monday, January 11. “The Government of Anguilla took a team to St. Maarten to have discussions with the Prime Minister there, the Hon. William V. Marlin, and the Minister of Justice, the Hon. Richard Gibson, along with staff from the Department of Immigration and Foreign Affairs as well,” Anguilla’s Hon. Chief Minister, Mr. Victor Banks, told reporters at Monday’s Government-held press conference.
“Our mission was to deal with a number of issues. The key issue was the night ferry service from Juliana Airport to Anguilla. As you know, one of the important components of our access is passengers coming into Anguilla via the St. Maarten airport around 10:30 in the evening and sometimes later. As a result of that, the [passengers] are unable to make the connection between Anguilla and St. Maarten because the immigration service is not available at that time. As a result, a number of persons would have to spend the night in St. Maarten. We want to ensure that we could sort that issue out which has been on-going. Over the Christmas holidays…there was an incident where those persons were kept back for a period of time and had to spend the night in St. Maarten so we wanted to ensure that it was sorted out.”
Chief Minister Banks continued: “It was a very successful meeting and we came to an agreement, to put in place a firm arrangement starting the 17th of January, whereby the port in St. Maarten will be available with immigration services up until one o’clock in the morning. This will give the opportunity for anybody coming in after midnight, or earlier, to be availed of immigration services and as a consequence to be able to come over to Anguilla.”
The Chief Minister, who is also the Minister of Tourism, said that the late ferry service would continue until May 31 and then through the new tourism season 2016/2017. “It is something that the Tourism Ministry can promote for persons travelling to Anguilla to take the later flights, thus giving them more options in terms of arriving at our destination,” he added.
He also reported that the meeting dealt with issues related to residents of Anguilla holding work permits or permanent residence but are not in possession of visas to travel via St. Maarten to other parts of the world. “We have come to an understanding as to how we will work through that,” he stated. “All in all, it was a very successful meeting and I am happy to know that we have finally come to a resolution of that issue.”
