Air Caraïbes is preparing another attempt at turning its Paris Orly–St. Maarten service into a year-round operation. According to schedule filings reported by AeroRoutes on 15 October 2026, the French carrier now lists one weekly Airbus A350-900 flight between Orly (ORY) and Princess Juliana International Airport (SXM) through the Northern summer 2027 season, from 13 May to 14 October 2027.
The move would keep St. Maarten on the Air Caraïbes map outside the busy winter season, when Caribbean demand from France is at its strongest.
Second time lucky?
This is not the first time the airline has tried. For summer 2026, Air Caraïbes had planned to keep the route going with two weekly flights during the summer season, but AeroRoutes notes that this "never materialized". The new filing is more cautious, with a single weekly rotation rather than two, which suggests the airline is looking for a level of summer capacity it can actually sustain.
The planned summer 2027 schedule is:
- TX520 Paris Orly 12:25 – St. Maarten 15:15, Thursdays, A350-900
- TX527 St. Maarten 17:45 – Paris Orly 07:50 the next morning, Thursdays, A350-900
That pattern gives the aircraft a short turn on the island in the late afternoon before an overnight return to Paris, landing at Orly early the following morning.
A widebody for a weekly route
Air Caraïbes uses Airbus A350s on its long-haul flying from Orly to the French Caribbean, so a weekly widebody is the natural size for this market. The twin-engine A350-900 offers the range for the transatlantic sector with plenty of margin and gives the carrier enough seats and belly cargo capacity to make a once-a-week frequency viable during the quieter months.
Princess Juliana International sits on the Dutch side of the island of Saint Martin, shared between the Netherlands' Sint Maarten and France's Saint-Martin. The airport is famous among enthusiasts for its approach over Maho Beach, where large jets pass just above sunbathers on their final descent to the runway. For French travellers, the island is part of a familiar Caribbean circuit that also includes Guadeloupe and Martinique, both core markets for Air Caraïbes.
What year-round service would mean
Summer is the traditional low season for Caribbean leisure travel from Europe, as hurricane season and hot weather dampen demand. Airlines often scale back or pull out of smaller island routes between spring and autumn, then return for the winter peak. A year-round weekly flight would give travellers visiting family, second-home owners and business passengers on the island a nonstop option to Paris across all twelve months, rather than relying on connections during the summer gap.
The decision will also matter to the island's tourism sector, which depends heavily on air links with Europe and North America. Even a single weekly A350 represents several hundred seats each way per week that would otherwise need to be routed via other islands or hubs.
Whether the 2027 plan sticks will depend on how bookings develop. As the 2026 experience shows, filed summer schedules can still change before the season begins. For now, Air Caraïbes is signalling that it wants a permanent nonstop presence in St. Maarten, and is willing to try again with a leaner schedule to make it work.
Key details
- Route: Paris Orly (ORY) – St. Maarten (SXM)
- Period: 13 May – 14 October 2027 (Northern summer season)
- Frequency: one weekly, on Thursdays
- Aircraft: Airbus A350-900
- Previous attempt: two weekly planned for summer 2026, which did not operate
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