Cayman Airways to launch Barbados route

Cayman Airways will launch direct flights to Barbados this winter, officials announced Monday.

Tourism Minister Kenneth Bryan, with Cayman Airways representatives, as well as Barbados Tourism Minister Ian Gooding-Edghill via Zoom, made the announcement at a press briefing, at which details of the new route – and how it would link to a variety of other regional and international gateways – were revealed.

Bryan also announced a second weekly flight to Los Angeles, as Cayman’s national airline continues to broaden its horizons.

He described the twice-weekly Barbados flight, which is tentatively set to launch on 18 Oct., as a “game changer” that would open up travel between Cayman and the eastern Caribbean. It would also help establish Cayman as a hub for travel between Barbados and North America, and Barbados as a hub for European travel for Cayman, he said.

There are currently direct regional flights from Barbados to Antigua, Dominica, Grenada, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, St. Lucia, Guyana, and Trinidad and Tobago – meaning that travellers from Grand Cayman wishing to fly to those eastern Caribbean destinations would no longer have to fly via the US to get there.

Though the price of tickets for the new route was not disclosed, Bryan said the flights will establish a “faster and cheaper alternative” for travel between Cayman and Barbados than anything currently available.

“It will make it possible to travel from one side of the Caribbean to the other within the same day without connecting through Miami,” he said.

Linking to UK

Bryan said that the route would also expand Cayman’s reach “within the United Kingdom” by adding connectivity beyond the current London Heathrow service provided by British Airways, which operates via Nassau, Bahamas.

Virgin Atlantic currently runs daily flights from Heathrow to Barbados, and is set to launch a direct Manchester to Barbados route on 19 Oct. this year, which will fly five times a week, on Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays.

Bryan said he anticipated the new route would generate increased travel from the UK and Europe, and would build cultural connections between the Cayman Islands and Barbados.

He described the route as a mutually beneficial agreement between Cayman and Barbados, which could boost tourism numbers in both places.

He said he could not answer any questions regarding the financial arrangement and contract between Cayman and Barbados on the new route, but said, “the Cayman Islands will not lose in any capacity”.

Asked why passengers from Europe would opt to fly to Grand Cayman via Barbados, rather than through one of the several US hubs available, Bryan said research showed travellers from the UK and Europe were opting for multi-destination travel, and that others would choose not to travel via the US because of visa restrictions.

“When you add up the little pieces of information together, you start to see there is a … percentage we can tap into that we are not currently tapping into. The more routes you have to your destination, as long as they are profitable, and not loss makers, it increases your opportunity from a tourism perspective,” he said.

Flight schedules

Cayman Airways CEO Fabian Whorms noted that the anticipated 18 Oct. start date for the new route is tentative and subject to change, as the airline is still awaiting operational and ticket sale approval from regulators.

If the necessary approvals are received, he said, tickets are expected to go on sale in early or mid-August.

If all goes according to plan, the Cayman-Barbados flights will operate on Wednesdays and Thursdays, Whorms stated.

Outlining the timing of the flights, which are being scheduled to connect with the airline’s Los Angeles flights, Whorms explained that the plan is for flights on Wednesdays to depart Owen Roberts International Airport at 7am and arrive in Barbados at 11.10am, and then return to Cayman the same day, arriving in Cayman at 2:45pm. This means that people on that flight could connect to CAL’s 3:45pm mid-week Los Angeles flight, and would get them into LAX by 7:45pm local time.

That aircraft will then turn around for a ‘red-eye’ overnight flight from Los Angeles back to Cayman, arriving at Owen Roberts at 7am Thursday morning, in time to connect with the Grand Cayman-Barbados flight at 10am. That flight would land in Grantley Adams International Airport in Barbados at 2:10pm local time, enabling passengers going onwards to the UK to connect with Virgin Airways and other flights, Whorms said.

There would then be a flight back from Barbados to Grand Cayman at 4:15pm, arriving at 7:10pm local time.

“These flight times are still being tweaked, but we wanted to give an indication of what it will look like,” Whorms said.

Using that same proposed schedule, travellers who want to fly from Manchester to the Cayman Islands via Barbados could depart Manchester Airport on Thursday morning and arrive in Cayman that evening, or, if going in the other direction, would be able to fly from Cayman to Barbados on Thursday morning to link up with a 7:55pm flight to Manchester that would arrive at 8:25am next morning.

New opportunities for travel

Barbados Tourism Minister Gooding-Edghill said the deal between his government and Cayman to establish the route opened up new opportunities for travel for Barbadians, and for people throughout the regions to travel to Barbados.

To encourage travel into Barbados, the minister said that he had piloted a legislative amendment last week to reduce the airport service charge at Grantley Adams International Airport for CARICOM travellers, which includes people flying from Cayman, until 14 Dec. this year.

Efforts over the years to establish more air travel interconnectivity between Caribbean islands have been stymied by high aviation and airport fees and taxes.

“I believe that this amendment will further inspire interregional travel, as high airfares have been a challenge for tourism recovery globally,” he said.

Asked if the Cayman Islands government planned to introduce a similar reduction in airport fees and taxes, Bryan said there were no plans to do so, especially as Cayman has already announced a $20 increase in passenger taxes to help pay for airport redevelopment work.

Gooding-Edghill told reporters that his team would “aggressively market” the new route.

If the proposed launch date goes ahead, he said, the first flight from Grand Cayman into Bridgetown will arrive in time for the Barbados Food and Rum Festival being held 19-22 Oct.

He extended an invitation to Caymanians and the Barbadian diaspora living in Cayman to avail of the new flights and come to the festival.

One-stop flights from Manchester

John-Paul Clarke, chairman of the Cayman Airways board of directors, said through an interline agreement with Virgin Atlantic, CAL would have the “only one-stop itinerary… with convenient baggage check-through, between Manchester International Airport in England and Cayman, which means we now have a one-stop service with the British midlands, a place where we have great interest from a tourism perspective”.

He told reporters that Cayman is looking to add two more US destinations, “both within four hours away”, and to add more interline agreements, which will be announced later this year.

Asked if the airline had a large enough fleet to deal with an expanded flight schedule, Clarke said while Cayman Airways’ planes were very busy at weekends, week days were quieter times and operating additional flights mid-week would not stretch resources.

The Barbados flight will be the fourth Caribbean route for Cayman Airways, which currently also flies to Jamaica, Cuba and Honduras.