Air Caraibes Downgrades Sint Maarten Service Before It Starts

In late May, French West Indian carrier Air Caraibes announced it would resume flights from Paris Orly (ORY) to Sint Maarten (SXM), introducing it as a year round service. This comes after service was suspended in 2022 following economic uncertainty.

Flights will relaunch on December 12, 2025, and will operate three times weekly on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays using an Airbus A330-200. According to the original schedule, the carrier planned to reduce service to twice weekly from May 2026 during the off-peak period.

Unfortunately, Air Caraibes has decided to switch the year-round service to seasonal, axing flights from May through early October. According to the new schedule, Air Caraibes will suspend flights to Sint Maarten from May 8 to October 15, 2026.

They will once again resume service, offering three weekly flights for the balance of October, before downgrading to two flights per week from November 2026 going forward. Air Caraibes has not given a reason for the suspension, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they conceded to Air France which currently operates daily flights between Paris Charles De Gaulle (CDG) and Sint Maarten.

Even though Air France will bump service to twice daily from December 8, 2025, they plan to return to a once daily flight in mid-April when the high season draws to a close.

Besides these flights, Air Caraibes currently operates up to six flights between Grand Case (SFG) on the French side of Saint Martin island, and Pointe-à-Pitre (PTP) in Guadeloupe. Air Caraibes also has a code share with St Barth Commuter, offering connecting flights over to Saint Barthelemy (otherwise known as St. Barts, St. Barth or St. Barths depending on who you ask). St Barth Commuter operates a fleet of Cessna 208B Caravans.

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