Charter flights, seaplanes & getting around St. Croix

The airline schedule is only half of how people reach and move around St. Croix. Under it runs a second network: a charter operator that has been on the field since 1959, turboprops positioned over from San Juan in under an hour, a nine-seat island-hopper fleet, and — best of all — a seaplane that skips the airport entirely and lands on the water in downtown Christiansted. This page is the honest map of that network, plus the ground layer: taxis, rental cars, the ferry, and the one rule of the road everyone asks about.

One airport, and a harbor

Everything with wheels lands at Henry E. Rohlsen Airport (STX) in Kingshill, mid-island — a 10,002-foot runway that takes anything from a Cessna to a 747, with U.S. Customs and Border Protection on the field. That combination matters for charters: the island is a U.S. port of entry, so a private flight from the mainland is effectively domestic for U.S. citizens, and a flight in from the wider Caribbean clears right there. If you are weighing a jet, our flying-private guide has the runway math, the FBO detail and which aircraft go nonstop from where.

The second arrival point has no runway at all. The Christiansted Harbor seaplane base (FAA code SSB) sits on the downtown waterfront, a few steps from the boardwalk — which means a seaplane passenger lands in the middle of town, not twenty minutes outside it. More on that below.

Bohlke — the charter house on the field

Bohlke International Aviation is St. Croix's own charter operator — founded in 1959 by William Bohlke Sr., an Army Air Corps veteran, and still family-run three generations later. It is also the island's FBO (the private-aviation terminal), voted the Caribbean's best in the 2024 Pro Pilot PRASE survey, which is why nearly every private arrival on St. Croix taxis to its ramp.

The charter fleet is real and published: three Cessna Citation Bravo light jets based on St. Croix (one kept configured as a dedicated Caribbean medevac aircraft), a Mitsubishi MU-2 twin turboprop that cruises past 325 mph, and — through its sister company M&N Aviation in San Juan — a Dassault Falcon 900EX with transatlantic legs, a Hawker 800XP, a Citation VII and two nine-seat Cessna Grand Caravans, plus managed aircraft up to a Gulfstream G280. In practice that means the island has everything from a two-island hop to a Europe-capable heavy jet on call, quoted per trip. No published price sheets exist and we will not invent one; the operator quotes by aircraft and routing.

M&N Aviation, the San Juan half of the family since 2020, runs its own Part 135 charter and aircraft-management operation and flies medical and organ-transport missions with AeroMD. For villa guests the practical point is simple: San Juan is about 40 nautical miles out, so an aircraft positioned from SJU is overhead St. Croix in well under an hour.

Tradewind — the PC-12 option

Tradewind Aviation, the Connecticut operator known for the Caribbean's largest Pilatus PC-12 fleet, lists St. Croix as an on-demand charter destination. Its scheduled shuttle network runs San Juan–St. Thomas–St. Barth; St. Croix is served by charter, which suits a family or group that wants a private cabin without jet pricing. The PC-12 seats eight, uses short runways, and is the aircraft of choice for exactly this kind of island flying. Tradewind has 20 new PC-12 NGX airframes on order, so the fleet is current.

Cape Air — the everyday island-hopper

Not a charter, but the backbone of the island's short-haul flying: Cape Air runs 80-plus daily Caribbean flights from its San Juan hub, including multiple daily San Juan–St. Croix and St. Croix–St. Thomas runs and a twice-weekly hop to Nevis. The aircraft are nine-passenger Cessna 402Cs — every seat a window seat, twenty-some minutes in the air — with the new eleven-seat Tecnam P2012 Traveller rolling into the fleet. If you have never flown the 402, treat the hop as part of the vacation: you watch the pilot fly, and the reef passes under the wing the whole way.

Fly The Whale — the frequent hop

Fly The Whale — a seaplane company in the Northeast, a land-plane operator here — flies nine-seat Cessna Grand Caravans out of Rohlsen: up to a dozen round trips a day to St. Thomas and several daily to San Juan's in-town Isla Grande (SIG) airport, which sits next to old San Juan rather than out at the international field. For a St. Thomas lunch run or a Puerto Rico connection without the big-airport shuffle, this is the frequency play; book direct and confirm the day's schedule.

The seaplane

St. Croix's most storied way to travel is the harbor seaplane, and it is flying in 2026. Seaborne Airlines — founded on St. Croix in 1992, heir to the 1960s Grumman Goose shuttles of Antilles Air Boats — crosses between Charlotte Amalie harbor and Christiansted Harbor in about 25 minutes in a De Havilland Twin Otter on floats. The company bills itself as the world's only seaplane operator holding a full FAR Part 121 airline certificate. You board a few steps from the Christiansted boardwalk, take off down the harbor, and the whole crossing happens at picture-window altitude.

Honest status, because it matters for planning: Seaborne survived its parent company's 2025 shutdown, was bought by a new owner that July, and currently flies one Twin Otter on the route — it has announced financing to grow the seaplane fleet to four, but as of August 2026 the published fleet is still one aircraft, so schedules vary and a booked day can move. Check current times, and keep the Cape Air / Fly The Whale airport hop as the backup. It is worth the small hassle: no other arrival on St. Croix ends with a water landing in the middle of town.

Island-hoppers out of Puerto Rico

Two more names round out the region's small-plane bench, both Puerto Rico-based. Vieques Air Link connects St. Croix with Vieques and Culebra using the Caribbean's classic island aircraft, the Britten-Norman Islander (it was the first Caribbean operator of the type, in 1968), plus Trislanders and Caravans. Air America Caribbean, a San Juan charter house flying since 2002, quotes on-demand trips from San Juan, St. Thomas and St. Croix to the smaller islands — Vieques, Culebra, Tortola, Virgin Gorda, St. Barths. For a multi-island itinerary based at the villa, these are the operators your concierge will end up calling.