Fly Jamaica Airways Launches Intra-Caribbean Flights

Jamaica's Minister of Tourism, Wykeham McNeill, visited the Fly Jamaica Airways stand during the Visit Jamaica event to celebrate World Tourism Day last week (27 September) in Montego Bay. The airline's network will grow to four airports when flights to Toronto begin in early October from both Kingston and Georgetown.

Fly Jamaica Airways began operations back in February 2013 when it started four times weekly flights between Norman Manley International Airport in Jamaica, and New York JFK Airport, using an ex-ATA 757. Since then it has been busy trying to sort out a number of regulatory issues to enable it to grow its route network.

At the end of September, the airline’s route network expanded to include Georgetown in Guyana, making it the only carrier to link Kingston and Georgetown.

The airline now also operates nonstop from New York JFK to Georgetown, but flights in the other direction currently have to operate via Kingston due to the US Department of Transportation.

In early October the airline will start serving Toronto with non-stop flights in both directions from Georgetown and Kingston.

Analysis of the airline’s published schedule indicates the following rotation plan for the airline’s sole 757. A total of 17 sectors will be flown each week come mid-October, with four of these accounted for by the two weekly return routes to Toronto.

The remaining sectors are Kingston-JFK (four), JFK-Kingston (three), Georgetown-Kingston (three), Kingston-Georgetown (two) and JFK-Georgetown (one). On four nights of the week the airline’s 757 spends the evening in Kingston, as well as all day Saturday.

One of the quirks of the schedule is that passengers wanting to travel between Georgetown and Kingston have a choice of three weekly flights, but two of them are on Fridays.

Competition on the airline’s network is particularly strong on the airline’s North American routes from Kingston, with one US carrier (JetBlue Airways), two Canadian carriers (Air Canada and WestJet), and another local carrier (Caribbean Airlines) providing stiff opposition. Maybe surprisingly, there is no competition on the 2,370-kilometre sector between Kingston and Georgetown.