New Flights to the Caribbean This Winter, an Island-by-Island Guide

Article by Michelle Higgins

When planning a Caribbean vacation, you might begin by sifting through the latest list of top beaches or hot new hotels. But where you ultimately decide to go often comes down to one thing: how convenient is the flight?

This is not a secret to the airlines, which also realize that the more direct the route, the more likely they are to get passengers’ dollars.

Airlines continue to add routes to the islands from key U. S. cities. The number of nonstop flights between the United States and the Caribbean jumped 18 percent to 135,162 in 2018 from 114,150 five years ago, according to OAG, a global travel data company.

American Airlines alone has added nine new flights to the Caribbean and Bahamas this season, including new year-round service between Miami and St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Dallas-Fort Worth and Aruba, as well as from New York’s La Guardia Airport to Nassau in the Bahamas. Other new seasonal nonstop flights will run from Chicago to Aruba, Grand Cayman, Nassau and the Turks and Caicos. The airline is also increasing service from its Miami hub to the Caribbean with additional daily flights to Barbados, Curaçao, St. Lucia, Trinidad and Tobago, and both Santo Domingo and Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic.

Cayman Islands

JetBlue began a new daily flight from Fort Lauderdale to Grand Cayman in late October and Southwest Airlines reinstated seasonal service along the same route. American began flying nonstop from Chicago on Saturdays this month. And for the first time, Cayman Airways will fly nonstop between Denver and Grand Cayman starting in March. The new nonstop service will reduce the travel time from Denver to less than five hours from between nine and 11 hours using multiple flights, according to the airline.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/17/travel/caribbean-nonstop-direct-flights-added.html