Curaçao Air Terminal Services

CATS, is the pioneer in providing services to private aviation on Curaçao. The company started in 1983 with a handful of weekly operations, but increased the private aviation traffic over time to approximately 3500 movements per year. CATS, has its headquarters in Curaçao and sister company in Cuba. They will be opening soon a new location in the Caribbean. The recently established, CATS Group, is a network of partners and alliances in Venezuela, Colombia and Brazil.

Concerning the aviation business model, Curaçao has a strategic location. The island serves as a convenient hub between South and North America. The founders identified this opportunity and decided to attract more private aviation towards the islands. One of the founders was a pilot and saw first hand the lack of service for private aircrafts on Curaçao. This experience turned into an inspiration to establish a handling company. The founders lived and worked on Curaçao, making the island their first choice to start the business.

Our core business is focused on aviation, therefore, our preference goes to new investments within this sector. Running a successful local company since 1983 has also provided us the opportunity to consult other companies.

Curaçao holds more than the eye meets. The fact that we are a multi-cultural and multi-lingual society, defines us as an inviting country. Our product isn’t only Sea, Sun and Sand. The bigger picture lies with the people, culture, diversity, history and strategic location of the island. When these elements are combined and presented unified and properly, Curaçao has a unique experience to offer for its visitors.

Part of our main goal for the next five years it to increase luxury tourism to the island, by working together with the local public and private sector. This group is an attractive segment for local companies as you are increasing your tourism with visitors who hold a significant spending power.

The other part to our main goal is to increase our corporate social responsibility. It is our company philosophy to create a balance between giving back and making a profit.

A challenge that CATS has faced since the beginning of our company is the pure nature of its business. For most people in society, it is an unknown type of business, which makes it difficult to obtain and create strategic partners. We operate a niche within the travel sector, however, this group has significant spending power. The click between quantity and quality is often lost, when CATS seeks allies and partners. Many opportunities are found within this luxury niche for businesses on the Island. The luxury niche continues to be underestimated and misunderstood, which creates opportunities for the island and its investors to fade away. However, CATS warns of a greater sense of unity within the business community that points to this segment, which will give us a broad vision and perspective in the near future.

Who are the organizations on the island with experience, insight and support? Organizations such as CINEX and CIFA are great places to start if you are thinking about investing on Curaçao.

One of the most important parts to starting the company was to find out why some private aircrafts were already operating on the island and use that insight to increase the market. With this information, CATS was able to inform the concerning organizations properly to obtain support and permits.

All public organizations involved in aviation, mainly the civil aviation association, became of extreme importance for the research and development of this type of business.

If your business involves a niche market within tourism, it’s important to find out if your ideology is aligned with the public tourism organizations. The closer the business model lies with the overall tourism plan, the more easy it will become to take part within the master plan. Working together with strategic partners has been one of the best things for the company and highly recommended.