bonaire travel time?

[oldschoolto]

Maybe someone can tell me the trick to travel to bonaire from Boston/New york and back with out craze layovers... Seems like 12 to 23 hour trips are the only way to get there!!! Traveling march 2013...
thanks... Jim

 

[diversteve]

That's probably about the best you can do. There's an 8H American Airlines flight from JFK thru MIA to Curacao - you puddle jump over from there - takes 1/2 hr. But the return leaves at 8:15AM so you'd have to spend the night in Curacao. The other option is a 4:40PM return flight. You might also try thru Aruba but the connections weren't so great for us. And most flights stop in Curacao first.

Here's the info: Info Bonaire - Airline Information and Connections

Connecting from North America via Curacao:

American Airlines, Insel Air, and DAE fly non-stop daily to Curaçao from Miami; Insel Air flies on Saturdays and seasonally on Wednesdays non-stop from Charlotte, North Carolina to Curacao with continuing connections to Bonaire and Continental Airlines flies non-stop on Wednesdays and Saturdays to Curacao from Newark. Passengers then may use local carriers to connect to Bonaire. Flying time between Curaçao and Bonaire is approximately 15-30 minutes on these carriers: Divi Divi can be reached at: +599-9-839-1515 or fax +599-9-868 1949; Insel Air flies between Curaçao and Bonaire seven times daily and offers a weekend jet service on Friday nights, Saturday mornings and Sunday afternoons to accommodate more passengers and luggage; Dutch Antilles Express (DAE) and Tiara Air each offer daily flights; finally, Easy Air offers five round-trip flights per day between Curaçao and Bonaire. They can be reached via email at flyeasyair@gmail.com, or by phone locally at 796-3939 or cellular 515-3939, fax is 869-3999.

Another routing option is to fly on any of a number of major U.S. and South American carriers to Aruba and then take Insel Air (with a stop in Curacao) or Tiara Air (non-stop) from there to Bonaire.

Insel Air's offices can be reached in Curaçao at phone: +599-9-733-1521 or +599-9-733-1522, or at the airport at +599-9-868-4400 or 868-6600. They fly several times daily to Bonaire from both Curaçao and Aruba. Tiara Air flies non-stop flights six times each week from Aruba to Bonaire and back.

Insel also flies direct to Bonaire from MIA. Flight departs MIA at 2PM - 4hr. flight. The return flight only works during the week. So maybe find something direct to MIA?

As long as you're driving down to NY - what about Newark? There's a Friday night red-eye direct to Bonaire - arrives at 5AM on Sat. Some of the resorts have made accommodations for it by storing your bags till your room is ready - breakfast and the BMP orientation that morning - then check-in.

United Airlines offers two to three non-stop weekly flights, all operated by Continental, and all flights should be considered seasonal. This means that periods of low demand, the airline may decide to withhold services until such time as demand is higher.

Their first flight is a round-trip flight between Newark and Bonaire which operates only during periods of high demand, utilizing a Boeing 737 with 124 seats.

Try your days here: http://matrix.itasoftware.com/search.htm - you can tweak duration/departure times etc. till you find something good. Booking is done thru the airline - it's the database where all the airlines - and most travel aggregators - get their info.

 

[DiveMaven]

IMO if you can fly out of the NY area, your best bet is the midnight redeye on United through EWR. You'll be on the ground on Bonaire before 5am.

 

[mbs]

Well depending on your level of comfort with tight connections in atlanta, there is a 6am sat morning delta from lga connecting to the atlanta to bonaire flight with like an 1:20 layover. Not quite as bad on the return. We used to use that flight, but it got a little too stressful so we overnight in atlanta and leave in the am.

 

[oldschoolto]

Got it down to just under 5hrs each way, thanks diversteve matrix and a small change in travel days and I ended up with a cheap fare and great travel time....

Jim...