Insel air Baggage questions Aruba to Curacao

[reefseal]

OMG.. The baggage policies on their website are freaking me out.

We're flying from Aruba to Curacao. On the flight out, we're on the F50

There will be 4 of us, I'm able to fit all dive gear in two dive bags. Concern will be the weight of the bags and the bags not making the flight.

Anyone experience bags arriving days later?
How strict do they enforce weight??

Thinking better to rent gear (ugh..)

Advice??

 

[irie1029]

I have not had issues personally but I have heard divers who flew Aruba to Curacao as well as Aruba Bonaire complain about baggage delays. I would follow the luggage guidlines to the letter. I know they are convoluted to say the least perhaps email them your exact situation at least you will have it in writing.

 

[reefseal]

Read and re-read guidelines and also called Insel Air reservations. As divers, we're permitted an extra 10kg (22 lbs) of gear provided show documentation that we're divers. The dive gear has to be packed separately from checked baggage. Also, there is the possibility if flight full, all bags will not make flight and will be put on next flight. Good news one more flight after ours but it's a smaller Embraer aircraft.

If bags way more than allotted weight, we'll have to pay $40.

Now to find a way to weigh our bags to make sure within weigh range.

 

[Kharon]

I have a tiny scale specifically made for luggage. (Balanzza Ergo Hand-Held Digital Luggage Scale Mini at LeisurePro). Good to have both directions. I took BC, fins, and other big stuff in checked - regs, computer etc. in carry on. Kept within limits. My understanding is a single fee if checked goes over and a per kilo fee if the carry on is over. That said I've never had my checked bags weighed by them.

 

[reefseal]

No issues. We combined our gear amongst two bags and made sure they were both under 20 kg (44 lbs) The agent saw 6 bags (4 of us traveling) and was asking us to pay for 2 extra bags. Apparently he was not aware of their own allowances of 10 kg extra (which isn't much really) for gear and I reiterated it's dive gear. Then he put bags through. Fortunately, all gear arrived!!!!!!

We flew on older MD-80 (Vs. Foker 50 scheduled on) Guess they had more passengers. Of course it was delayed.

Oh.. On approach, had to abort landing as baby pelican on tarmac. (That was a first!)

 

[diver 85]

Just BE CAREFUL(your bags make it on plane---WITH YOU, ..lol)....Not Insel Air,...but..........but last August, 20 of our group of 30 going to Bonaire for a week were scheduled to fly Tiara from Curacao to Bonaire, about 7 PM that Saturday nite....Wife & I got an email--on the road traveling to New Orleans in our car-- from Tiara Friday nite saying "your Saturday flight to Bonaire IS cancelled"...WELL, we finally get to Curacao that Saturday & were told they were gunna overnite us there & fly us out very early Sunday morning ..We get to the hotel about 4:30PM Saturday afternoon...About 5:30PM we're(all 20) eating dinner & our waitress comes to us (@ the dinner tables!!) saying "Get your bags together(we had already brought them up to all our rooms), the taxis( wound up being the EXACT ones that brought us from the airport to the hotel) will be here in 15 minutes----all 20 of you are flying to Bonaire TONITE"....Well, we're all excited, get to the airport & finally about 8:30 PM we leave out-VERY EXCITED......We land @ airport(it's basically closed for the nite), go to where our bags will be coming out & are NOW told "You flew---but NONE of your 25 suitcases flew!!!!!!"...........BUT, -about 8 PM Sunday nite, all 25 bags made it to Buddy's Resort, safe & sound(We had been told since noon Sunday they will be here within an hour----lol, we really thought it was gunna be several days--if @ all--before we'd see them.)

Along that same story--INSEL AIR did well-----About 6 of our group had tickets(already paid for) on Dutch Antilles(DA) from Curacao to Bonaire.....WELL..they get to Cuiracao that Saturday afternoon with us & discover DA has gone (basically) belly-up....They now had to all buy another set of(SECOND TXS) txs to Boniare & leave out about the same time with us, Sunday morning........They thought they were gunna have to overnite with us (BUT they were gunna have to pay for everything ie hotel room & food--Tiara was footing all our bills).They PLEADED & BEGGED with Insel air about 7 PM @ the Curacao airport & all 6 got on Insel's flight(they had to pay for the txs )to Boniare----& made it to Boaire about 20+ minutes ahead of us -WITH THEIR LUGGAGE........

Bottom line is---------be careful with these airlines down there......You might not get what you think you've paid for.........lol......Good luck in your adventure, cuz it really was one for about 26 of 30 divers.......

You might ask what happened to the other 4???..They had a direct flight from Atlanta to Bonaire.........

 

[t4e]

Just BE CAREFUL....Not Insel Air........but last August, 20 of our group of 30 going to Bonaire for a week were scheduled to fly Tiara from Curacao to Bonaire, about 7 PM that Saturday nite....Wife & I got an email--on the road traveling to New Orleans in our car-- from Tiara Friday nite saying "your Saturday flight to Bonaire IS cancelled"...WELL, we finally get to Curacao that Saturday & were told they were gunna overnite us there & fly us out Sunday morning very early..We get to the hotel about 4:30PM Saturday afternoon...About 5:30PM we're(all 20) eating dinner & our waitress comes to us (@ the dinner tables!!) saying "Get your bags together(we had already brought them up to all our rooms), the taxis( wound up being the EXACT ones that brought us from the airport to the hotel) will be here in 15 minutes----all 20 of you are flying to Bonaire TONITE"....Well, we're all excited, get to the airport & finally about 8:30 PM we leave out-VERY EXCITED......We land @ airport(it's basically closed for the nite), go to where our bags will be coming out & are NOW told "You flew---but NONE of your 25 suitcases flew!!!!!!"...........BUT, -about 8 PM Sunday nite, all 25 bags made it to Buddy's Resort, safe & sound(We had been told since noon Sunday they will be here within an hour----lol, we all really thought it was gunna be several days--if @ all--that we'd see them)

Along that same story--INSELL AIR did well-----About 6 of our group had tickets(already paid for) on Dutch Antilles(DA) from Curacao to Bonaire.....WELL..they get to Cuiracao that Saturday afternoon with us & discover DA has gone (basically) belly-up....They now had to all buy another set of(SECOND TXS) txs to Boniare & leave out about with us Sunday morning........They thought they were gunna have to overnite with us (BUT they were gunna have to pay for everything ie hotel room & food--Tiara was footing all our bills).They PLEADED & BEGGED with Insel air about 7 PM @ the Curacao airport & all 6 got on Insel's flight(they had to pay for the txs )to Boniare----& made it to Boaire about 20+ minutes ahead of us -WITH THEIR LUGGAGE........

Bottom line is---------be careful with these airlines down there......You might not get what you think you've paid for.........lol......Good luck in your adventure, cuz it really was one for about 26 of 30 divers.......

You might ask what happened to the other 4???..They had a direct flight from Atlanta to Bonaire.........

interesting, just came back from Bonaire and someone at the airport said Tiara is out of business,nobody was ever at the kiosk in the airport, yet their website is up and running

 

[diver 85]

interesting, just came back from Bonaire and someone at the airport said Tiara is out of business,nobody was ever at the kiosk in the airport, yet their website is up and running

That's how DA was that Friday afternoon/evening for us.....IE we found them on line & it said they had 'room for us to fly' Saturday nite...Wife was constantly e-mailing back & forth in the car to Tiara trying to get them to put us on DA's Saturday nite flight...All she ever got from Tiara was "Tiara was having mechanical plane trouble for Saturday nite's flight & DA was just having trouble in general for flying Saturday".....It made more sense(it seemed like) once we got there Saturday afternoon.....Who REALLY knows why all this crap happened.......

 

[reefseal]

YOU weren't kidding. Day before departure, got the email, flight cancelled and they put us on later flight. I noticed flight after the one put us on was also cancelled and they consolidated everyone into one of their 25 year old MD-80s. It made it very close to make connecting United Aruba flight home. You not only have clear Aruba Customs (long line), then go get your bags at baggage claim, go to USA departures, go through Aruba Customs and then wait in another long line for clearing US Customs, 2 sep security check points.. It worked out for us as would rather hang 2 more hours at hotel than at crappy Curacao airport.

Bags worked out weight wise though again, agent started giving us crap over not having our gear separately in 4 bags. I got OK from Reservations and they noted in record that we would be consolidating gear into two bags and would be within 20 KG (44 lb) weight limit which they were.

Never again. Not worth connecting. Fly direct next time. Wish United didn't cancel service to Curacao.


Glad bags made it to Aruba.

 

[lmorin]

interesting, just came back from Bonaire and someone at the airport said Tiara is out of business,nobody was ever at the kiosk in the airport, yet their website is up and running

Because of a major major problem with money handling in Venezuela, neither Tiara nor Insel have been paid huge amounts of money owed them from Venezuela. We read in the Bonaire Reporter that it was 40 million and 70 million for Tiara and Insel, respectively. Tiara could not maintain its operations. We got caught in Jan., being told on arrival in Aruba on Sat. that we'd have to go on a Sunday AM Tiara flight; that our return flight was completely canceled with no replacement and that, if we were lucky, we could take a more or less correspondent Insel flight. Did that, but then because of other Insel screwups, missed our JetBlue flight back to JFK and had to wait another 5 hr for another flight. Until things stabilize re Venezuela, we will not go via Aruba again. Tiara has, I think, flights only going into Colombia now.