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Princess Juliana International Airport (also known as Saint Maarten International Airport) is the main airport on the Caribbean island of Saint Martin, located on the Dutch side of the island in the country of Sint Maarten. In 2007, the airport handled 1,647,824 passengers and 103,650 aircraft movements.〔Company website: (Traffic statistics ), visited 21 December 2011〕 The airport serves as a hub for Windward Islands Airways and is the major gateway for the smaller Leeward Islands, including Anguilla, Saba, St. Barthélemy and St. Eustatius. It is named after Juliana of the Netherlands, who as crown princess landed here in 1944, the year after the airport opened. There is also an airport on the French side of the island, called Aéroport de Grand Case or L'Espérance Airport. The airport is perhaps best known for very low-altitude flyover landing approaches due to one end of its runway being extremely close to the shore and Maho Beach. ==History== The airport was started as a military airstrip in 1942. It was converted to a civilian airport in 1943. In 1964 the airport was remodeled and relocated, with a new terminal building and control tower. The facilities were upgraded in 1985 and 2001. Because of increased passenger traffic and the expected growth of passenger traffic in the near future, Princess Juliana International Airport is being heavily modernized following a three-phased masterplan, commissioned in 1997.〔Company website with (PJIAE Masterplan ), visited 21 December 2011〕 Phase I was a short-term program in order to upgrade existing facilities and improve the level of service at various points. This included widening, strengthening and renovating the runway, increasing the bearing capacity of the taxiways, construction of a new apron and an upgrade of the (old) terminal. Phase I was completed in 2001.〔Masterplan (Phase I: 1997–2001 ), visited 21 December 2011〕 Phase II included the construction of a radar facility and a new air traffic control tower, the construction of a new and more modern, , terminal, capable of handling 2.5 million passengers per year, and the construction of a Runway End Safety Area (RESA) of , including a overrun, on both ends of its runway, to comply with ICAO rules. The new air traffic control tower and the radar station commenced operations on 29 March 2004, while the new terminal opened in late October 2006.〔PJIAE Masterplan (Phase II ), visited 21 December 2011〕 The terminal has 4 jetways for large aircraft like 747s. If traffic develops as forecast, Phase III of the masterplan will be executed, consisting of an extension of the new terminal building and the construction of a full parallel taxiway system.〔PJIAE Masterplan: (Phase III ), visited 21 December 2011〕 The new terminal building will also have more jetways and services etc. However, the oil price increases since 2003 began impacting discretionary air travel worldwide by early 2008,〔 〕 and the prospect of further price increases〔 〕 threatens to reverse the recent expansion of tourist travel by jet which began with the 1980s oil glut.〔 〕 In 1994, the Kingdom of the Netherlands and France signed the Franco-Dutch treaty on Saint Martin border controls, which allows for joint Franco-Dutch border controls on so-called "risk flights". After some delay, the treaty was ratified in November 2006 in the Netherlands, and subsequently entered into force on 1 August 2007. Though the treaty is now in force, its provisions are not yet implemented as the working group specified in the treaty is not yet installed. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Princess Juliana International Airport」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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