INTERNATIONAL AIRLINE JetBlue is stepping up its New York service to Barbados offering two flights daily starting in the Easter and summer seasons.
General manager Terry Layne said this move was done to stem capacity loss and to keep prices down.
“We do know there is going to be some loss of capacity from one of our competitors so to ensure our pricing remains constant we decided to add additional capacity as to not drive up fares in the market. In addition we know that in certain times of the year there’s going to be additional demand . . . so we will be adding even more capacity to pick up any slack,” he said.
JetBlue plans to include additional early morning flights in February and April as well as from June to September even though that is not expected to completely fill the gap.
“Unfortunately we can’t make up all of the capacity drop but this does help in a meaningful way to ensure the airlift out of New York, and Barbados is not decreased to a level that is too insignificant,” he said.
American Airlines will discontinue their direct flights from New York’s JFK airport to Barbados and vice versa early next year. Earlier this year they discontinued their non-stop flights from Dallas to Barbados and will only be offering service to Barbados from Miami.
Layne was speaking yesterday at the Grantley Adams International Airport against the background of JetBlue debuting its new aircraft on its maiden trip to Barbados.
He said the Airbus A321 was less than a month old and had more passenger capacity – 190 compared to 150 on the A320. Seeing as it was so new, however, he said it had not yet been retrofitted with everything the company wanted but this would be rectified next year.
The full to capacity aircraft landed at GAIA from New York around 1:45 p.m and Layne said it would be leaving just as full. While Layne said JetBlue would only presently be offering flights to JFK, he said there were multiple destinations available from there, adding additional routes to Barbados could well be on the horizon.
“We are very optimistic. Our [passenger] load factor has been very good throughout the year and we’ve had a very successful year. Our forward bookings are looking well, especially January,” he said. (CA)
