Jamaica to see boost in flights from UK
Published:Monday | November 1, 2021 | 4:31 PM
Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett has indicated that starting this month Jamaica will receive at least 16 flights per week from the United Kingdom, bringing the island back to approximately 100 percent airline seat capacity as the nation's tourism numbers rebound.
Bartlett is currently in the UK with a high-level team from the Ministry of Tourism and the Jamaica Tourist Board participating in the World Travel Market, one of the largest international tourism trade shows in the world.
Bartlett is joined by Chairman of the Jamaica Tourist Board (JTB), John Lynch; Director of Tourism, Donovan White; Senior Advisor & Strategist, Ministry of Tourism, Delano Seiveright and JTB Regional Director of the UK and Northern Europe, Elizabeth Fox.
“We have had very good engagements with our key partners in the UK and have reassured them of Jamaica's readiness for them and our safety as a destination, with less than one percent covid infection rates on the Resilient Corridor,” said Bartlett in a statement.
“Additionally, I am happy to see airline seat capacity between the UK and Jamaica at around 100 percent of what it was pre-COVID when we were on a very strong growth path. We are very serious about action and strong results and so far I am with what we are achieving so far,” he noted.
Meanwhile, noting that TUI, British Airways and Virgin Atlantic are the three airlines carrying passengers between the UK and Jamaica, Seiveright highlighted that TUI is to operate six flights per week, Virgin Atlantic is to increase to five flights per week and British Airways is to operate five per week.
“The flights run out of London Heathrow, London Gatwick, Manchester and Birmingham. Beyond that we are likely to see further schedule changes as our teams continue discussions with our stakeholders.”
The engagements in the UK bring to an end a global markets blitz led by Bartlett and his senior officials which included Jamaica's two largest source markets, the United States and Canada, which reaped massive successes in dramatically boosting airlift to the island and reassuring stakeholders on the COVID-related safety of the destination.
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