Dutch airline KLM plans to resume its Costa Rica flights starting June 29, the Tourism Board (ICT) announced Monday.
The carrier will operate three weekly flights (Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays) on a triangle route from Amsterdam to the San José area (SJO) and Liberia (LIR).
June through August correspond to the European summer, months when ICT hopes more Europeans will be vaccinated against Covid-19 and will be willing to travel abroad.
“We celebrate the return of KLM,” said Gustavo Segura, Tourism Minister. “They are betting on Costa Rica, increasing the number of seats for the next few months and promoting the arrival of Europeans to the country.”
The flight will be operated by a Boeing 777-200 aircraft, which seats up to 320 passengers, per KLM.
Pending government approval, the twin-engine widebody will arrive at SJO at 1:05 p.m. and depart for LIR at 2:45 p.m. The scheduled arrival in Guanacaste is 3:30 p.m. with departure for the Netherlands at 4:40 p.m.
“We are delighted with the confirmation of the restart of operations of the Dutch airline KLM to Guanacaste as of June,” Segura said. “This news is an incentive to our growth projections for operations forecast for the second half of this year.”
The Dutch government has asked citizens not to travel abroad through at least May 15 and currently mandates a self-quarantine upon return.
“You must quarantine for 10 days immediately after returning to the Netherlands,” the travel advisory reads. “If you get tested on day 5 you might be able to shorten the quarantine period.”
The Netherlands has administered 4.5 million vaccine doses in a population of about 17 million.
Tickets for the KLM flights are on-sale now.
