Surface freight
Around 1990, the going rate for sea freight to Curaçao from Miami was ANG30/cu.ft (US$16.67), which works out to just under ANG945.75 per m3. The Curaçao handling agent makes a profit of 400% at least on this outrageous price, which very often is higher than the price of the transported merchandise. It may be, most probably is, even more now. Import duties and Omzetbelasting [sales tax] taxes are charged on freight (and insurance) costs added to invoiced price.
Air freight
The standard rule-of-thumb rate, officially, for air freight is 1% of the price of a one-way first class ticket to the same destination, per kilogram. You may well call this airway robbery. It's figured that a passenger equals 100 kilos, and take it from there, and still higher: It equals what you're charged for overweight luggage when checking in.
Passengers who, with the bankruptcy of DCA, had luggage left stuck in Miami, were forced to pay $340 to get a suitcase to Curaçao, while an AA round trip (including luggage, of course) was only $235. This situation is by no means unique for Curaçao. The same goes for:-
Federal Express and U.P.S.
While there is a substantial difference in rates between these two within the USA, this drops to virtually no difference at all as soon as you get South of Miami. Much worse, Fed Ex tariffs go up to over double the rate you'd pay within the USA.
FedEx
N. miles/km
US$
US$/km
Price Factor
NY10010-MIA3317
962-1540
2nd day
15.09
0.0098
MIA33137-CUR
1132-1811
Economy
51.98
0.028
2.93
UPS
NY10010-MIA3317
962-1540
ground
6.41
NY10010-MIA3317
962-1540
3-day select
11.03
0.0072
MIA33137-CUR
1132-1811
worldwide express
42.75
0.024
3.05
US Mail
NY10010-MIA3317
962-1540
parcel post
3.95
0.0026
MIA33137-CUR
1132-1811
worldwide express
21.25
0.012
4.51
NA Post These guys have signed an agreement with the Canadian postal service. Just mentioning in passing that a lot of money has been siphoned off in that deal. Apart from that, in 2003 alone, ANG5M just disappeared—almost $20 per Curaçao resident. But let's restrict ourselves to the postal rates. A couple of years ago, they offered Surface Mail, Surface Air Lifted (SAL) and (fastest) Air Mail. Then, they just stopped sending Surface Mail.
As it's hard to keep anything a secret here, it didn't take very long before most people were aware that, in reality, they shipped everything by Air Mail, no matter if you had only paid for SAL. So, naturally, that service was phased out too, instead of really using it which would have meant extra work! Now, we can only ship by Air Mail. And it comes expensive: To reply to a letter from Europe or the USA, we routinely pay about twice as much in postage. Strange enough, their Express Mail Service which offered a better and faster deal than Fed Ex (easy, but still amazing) is still around - at least, I saw one of their cars on the road recently. The good news for tourists is, it will cost you less to send a picture post card by Air Mail to Taiwanaland than for us to send a letter to our neighbor here.
The agreement with Canada Post ended in October, 2007. We're still stuck with some of the results. As it turns out, in Canada registered letters are handled by 7/11.
For our CDs, like the Werbata Maps and the Papalagi, this results in international customers having to pay more for postage than we ask for the product.
As importers here are well aware of all this, they feel quite justified in applying the same profit margins. And can you really blame them?
Flying Prices/ANG international
From-To
distance
Airline
price
per km
CUR-LGA
3220
AA
780
0.12
CUR-MIA
1920
AA
619
0.16
MIA-LGA
1770
AA
320
0.09
MIA-LAX
3770
AA
428
0.055
ORD-LGA
2800
AA
464
0.08
CUR-AMS
7840
MA
1149
0.07
CUR-AMS
7840
KL
2085
0.13
Flights from/to Curaçao are at least ~1.5 times more expensive than others AA American Airlines - MA MartinAir - KL KLM AMS AmsterdamCUR Curaçao - LAX Los Angeles - LGA/La Guaira NY - MIA Miami - ORD O'Hare/Chicago
regional
From-To
distance
Airline
price
per km
CUR-SXM
904
IA
360
0.20
CUR-SXM
904
DAE
486
0.26
CUR-PAP
795
IA
500
0.65
CUR-POS
821
IA
260
0.32
DAE Dutch Antilles Express - IA InselAir CUR Curaçao - PAP Port au Prince/Haïti - POS Port of Spain/Trinidad - SXM Sint Maarten
local
From-To
distance
Airline
price
per km
CUR-AUA
116
DAE/IA
~216
1.07
CUR-BON
79
DAE/IA
~175
0.90
DAE Dutch Antilles Express - IA InselAir AUA Aruba - BON Bonaire - CUR Curaçao
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