The last TravMagazine of 2023 brings together the protagonists of Corendon in one issue: Gunay Uslu, who will start working as the new CEO at the beginning of January, her brother and Corendon founder Atilay Uslu and the outgoing CEO Steven van der Heijden. Gunay and Atilay Uslu talk about, among other things, the operation in Curaçao and the positioning of the label By June, formerly known as Karin’s Choice. As Secretary of State for Culture and Media, Gunay Uslu has not interfered with tourism policy for the past (almost) two years, she says. ‘I wasn’t always in the Council of Ministers and I always acted as cleanly as possible. You have to do your job as honestly as possible and always avoid conflicts of interest.’ Corendon started operating its own flights between Schiphol and Curaçao at the beginning of November. The flights to and from Curaçao will be operated with an Airbus 350-900 of the Spanish World2Fly. With this ‘with a heavy heart’, KLM said goodbye to KLM, with which Corendon had a strategic partnership for ten years. However, KLM was unable to provide sufficient flight capacity at a competitive price, Corendon said. When asked whether Corendon is already back at the table with KLM, Atilay Uslu says: ‘We had a very pleasant marriage with KLM for ten years and said goodbye with pain in our hearts, because they could not offer the capacity. And you never know what’s coming up in the future. I have a very good relationship with KLM and recently had a nice dinner with the board. They also want to work with us, but at the moment they can’t give us the capacity we want to have. But we can always talk. At least, that’s no longer my job, that’s up to the CEO, of course.’ Read the complete interview with Gunay and Atilay Uslu and By June manager Willem Langenberg in the recently published TravMagazine 51. Click here for the interview with Steven van der Heijden.
