When planning a trip to St. Bartht's one of the first decisions you will have to make is how to get there. Large commercial airlines are too big to land at the island's airport, so most people fly to St. Maarten's Princess Juliana International Airport. St. Barth's is only 21.75 miles from St. Maarten.
Major airlines landing at St. Maarten's airport from North America are Air Canada, American Airlines, Delta Airlines, Jet Blue Airlines, Sun Country Airlines, Spirit Airlines, Sunwing Airlines, United Airlines, US Airways, and WestJet. For a full listing of airlines landing at St. Maarten click here.
Once on St. Maarten, it is decision time. You can either get to St. Barth's by sea or by air.
By sea you can take one of the daily ferries which costs 50 - 75 Euros round trip and lasts between 45 minutes to an hour. Taxi boats and private yachts are also options.
By air you can take the 12 minute puddle jump on Winair or St. Barth's Commuter which have multiple flights a day. This will cost around 140 euros for a round trip ticket.
Choosing the air option is the fastest and easiest choice, and it can be an adventure in itself, especially on a windy day. The airport on St. Barth's is a small strip wedged in between a mountain and the sea. Depending on the wind the landing plane usually comes over the mountain, and lands on the strip at a steeper degree most passengers have experienced. Pilot's landing there have a special certification for this maneuver. If you search the internet looking for information on this airport, don't be dismayed to find that this airport does show up on some most dangerous airport lists. But the top of the mountain has been dynamited away to allow for less of a downward decent, and if the plane does accidentally roll into the water on the other side of the runway, the water is warm and shallow so you can just swim to shore.
Oh, and if reading lists of dangerous airports, you will find that the St. Maarten's airport will be listed more frequently than St. Barth's, but this is mainly due to the dangers of airplane gas dropping onto the people standing on the beach below the landing jets, not so much for the flights themselves.
Bon Voyage!
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