More flights for Cayman as WestJet confirms December return

Canadian airline WestJet has confirmed it will be making a December return to local skies as Cayman moves closer to government’s planned 20 Nov. reopening date.

Madison Kruger, media relations advisor at WestJet, in response to Cayman Compass queries on Thursday, said the airline will be maintaining a once-weekly, non-stop service between Grand Cayman and Toronto beginning 16 Dec.

“[We] remain committed to serving the Cayman Islands throughout the winter,” she added in her emailed response.

The airline is the fourth international carrier to resume commercial service here and joins Air Canada in offering travel between Canada and Grand Cayman.

Air Canada will resume flights the first week in December through its Rouge service.

Back in September, British Airways resumed commercial flights three times a week between Grand Cayman and the UK, via Nassau, Bahamas.

This month, JetBlue resumed service from JFK international Airport in New York, making it the first US commercial flight to touch down at Owen Roberts International Airport since the borders were closed on 22 March last year.

American Airlines, however, has maintained that it will stick to its already announced February 2022 return to commercial service to Cayman.

While WestJet has announced its scheduled return, the Compass received a complaint from a traveller after his flight in January was cancelled.

He said he received notification that his flight from Toronto to Cayman on 26 Dec., returning to Toronto on 2 Jan., was cancelled with no options provided.

Kruger confirmed that this past weekend’s schedule was changed and the airline had removed one flight between Toronto and the Cayman Islands.

Flight schedules, Kruger said, are built many months in advance, but “due to inconsistent demand and rapidly evolving and fragmented travel policies and guidelines, demand has been challenging to predict, which has resulted in increased schedule revisions throughout the pandemic, which we know has been frustrating for our guests”.

“Schedule changes are part of normal weekly (sometimes twice weekly) operations and can include items like flight number changes and aircraft equipment changes, in addition to requests from partners like airport authorities etc., from current month out through 12 months,” she explained.

For any WestJet-initiated schedule modifications, where the change was greater than 90 minutes or one or more stops were added, she said, guests are eligible for a refund to their original form of payment if desired.

“We continue to offer flexible booking options for our guests and are providing refunds when requested for WestJet initiated cancellations and schedule changes that meet eligibility,” Kruger said.

All inbound travellers to the Cayman Islands are required to complete the online travel form via the Travel Cayman portal.

All in-bound travellers aged 5 or older must undergo pre-arrival PCR testing.

From 20 Nov., vaccinated travellers will not be required to quarantine; however, government has not yet released the full details on the next steps of its reopening plan after that date.