Janet Silvera, Senior Tourism Writer

MANHATTAN, New York:

Air Jamaica will add 28,000 seats to meet the predicted vibrant and busy summer traffic from New York, says the airline's senior vice-president of sales and marketing, Paul Pennicook.

In an interview with The Gleaner at the Caribbean Tourism Organisation's (CTO) Caribbean Week in Manhattan, New York, last Thursday, Pennicook said that the extra section will run from June 29 to September 3.

The flight, JM1010, will operate between the John F. Kennedy (JFK) International in New York and the Sangster International in Montego Bay four days per week, and wil three days per week from JFK to the Norman Manley International Airport in Kingston.

"Our bookings are looking very strong for June, July and August," the senior VP stated, adding that this vibrancy follows a robust January to May which saw the national carrier transporting some 55,000 more passengers over the same period last year, enjoying an increase of 12 per cent.

In addition to beefing up its Northeast business, the airline has announced that it will inaugurate non-stop service between Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood International Airport (FLL) and the Grantley Adams International Airport in Barbados, starting July 22.

New links

The flight will operate three days per week and offers new links from FLL to other islands in the Eastern Caribbean. Connections in Barbados will be on LIAT, the Caribbean airline, and can be made to the islands of Tobago, Grenada, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, Dominica, Martinique, Antigua and St. Kitts and Nevis.

"Based on the success of our non-stop flight from New York's JFK to Barbados and the possibilities it offers travellers from the Northeast, we believe providing this regular non-stop service to consumers in the Southeast will be equally successful," Pennicook told The Gleaner.

He said that Air Jamaica will operate an Airbus A-320 service on the new non-stop with 138 seats in Economy and 12 in Executive Business Class. This same flight, he noted, will offer the convenience to business people in Jamaica who can now depart Kingston to Ft. Lauderdale as early as 6:05 a.m., do business in Florida and return to Jamaica later that evening.

He remarked that there has been marked improvement in the airlines' on time performance even though "this is not where we want it to be".

In the meantime, the airlines' new fleeting exercise is on track to begin late summer, and the executive says he is confident about the introduction of the 757s into the fleet, which he promises will have a positive impact on reliability and on time performance.

Air Jamaica provides more non-stop flights to Jamaica than any other carrier with more than 270 flights per week from Atlanta, Baltimore/Washington, Chicago, Fort Lauderdale, Los Angeles, Miami, Newark, New York (JFK), Orlando, and Philadelphia in the U.S., Toronto, Canada and from London to Montego Bay and Kingston.