Royal Jordanian Sends Dreamliner to St. Maarten to Evacuate Irma Survivors
Since Hurricane Irma made its way through the Caribbean, St. Maarten's Maho Beach and famed Princess Juliana International Airport (SXM) have been left with devastating damage. Travel companies have made efforts to help the island by bringing supplies and helping survivors evacuate to safety — from KLM bringing its 747 back to SXM to Royal Caribbean sending one of its ships. Now, Royal Jordanian has shared that it's sent one of its aircraft to help evacuate Jordanian citizens.
According to FlightRadar24, on of Royal Jordanian's Dreamliners (JY-BAG) made the trip from Madrid (MAD) to St. Maarten (SXM) on Monday morning. After arriving at 8:21am, the aircraft quickly turned around after picking up evacuees before departing at 10:22am, bound for MAD.
Abdullah II bin Al-Hussein, the King of Jordan, reportedly ordered Royal Jordanian to send the aircraft to St. Maarten. According to the Jordanian government, there were 96 citizens in St. Maarten who needed to be rescued.
We reached out to Royal Jordanian but have yet to hear back about any of the specifics of the flight.
RJ's Dreamliners feature 24 lie-flat seats in business in a 2-2-2 configuration and 246 seats in economy in a 3-3-3 configuration.
If there were indeed 96 Jordanian citizens who were being evacuated, RJ's Dreamliner offers enough room for each of the survivors to have a lie-flat bed of their own — at least on paper. There are 80 "clusters" of three seats each in economy, meaning there's plenty of space for one passenger to have claimed a cluster for themselves, which could be used as a makeshift lie-flat bed. Others could get a true lie-flat bed at the nose of the aircraft.
At the time of this writing, RJ Flight 6104 is en route to Madrid and is expected to arrive at 5:36pm ET. Royal Jordanian does not regularly operate flights to SXM.
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