Princess Juliana
International Airport

The old Juliana runway.
Originally constructed by the US Army in 1942, it remained relatively unchanged until the 1960s.

The original terminal location can still be seen near the village of Simpson Bay. It was a simple, small building.

In 1964, the terminal was moved, and that's when the airport was officially named "Queen Juliana" and later became "Princess" upon the monarch's abdication on April 30, 1980.

The first regular flight was operated by KLM to Curaçao, which took more than three hours.

I remember as a child, my grandparents used to travel back to France by boat, typically on the "Antilles" cruise ship. Crossing the Atlantic in a Constellation aircraft was a grueling journey of over twenty hours, with a layover in the Azores.

My grandparents told me that on those poorly soundproofed planes, overnight flights had bunk beds, a luxury service called the "Comet d'Or."

Then came the era of Caravelles.

For us kids, flying was a rare experience.

The first time was to go to Guadeloupe, and the second was to Trinidad.

It wasn't until the mid-1980s that our island had a direct weekly flight to Paris. Before that, we had to leave the day before and stay overnight in Guadeloupe because the flight to the capital departed very early.

I can still picture the terrace at Raizet in Pointe-à-Pitre, the farewells, the goodbyes, the blown kisses, and the wiped tears.

Traveling to Europe was a luxury; the cheapest ticket cost 12,000 francs!

Saint Martin, my island, my childhood, the French Caribbean.