On average, 60% of seats on Cayman Airways’ direct flights to Los Angeles have been filled since the route launched in early November last year, according to the airline’s president Fabian Whorms.
And future bookings for the summer season will bring that average up to about 70%, the CAL boss said.
Speaking at a press briefing Monday to announce a new route to Panama City, Whorms, in response to Compass questions about the performance of the LAX flights, said, “At this point in time, we’re going through a bit of a slow period on many of our routes. The airline business is very seasonal, so this is normal. What I would say is LAX right now is performing just as well as New York is, and we’re quite happy with that.”
Saying that the performance is “living up to exactly what we expected it to be,” Whorms noted that, in terms of percentage load factor, “between the very high peaks and some of the troughs, we are averaging about 60% percent overall. Going into the summer, we’re looking at a much higher load factor, about 70%.”
Tourism Minister Kenneth Bryan, speaking at the press briefing, noted that many of seats in that 60% load-factor figure were within the more expensive business-class sections of the planes.
“It’s a different ratio of profitability,” he said. “If you have 60% just in the back, it’s totally different from 60% of the front and some of the regular seats. The good news is that many of the passengers who are booking, are booking out the business-class seats first.”
Whorms agreed, saying, “Even on flights where the load factor may be 60% booked, the 16 business-class seats are generally always sold, and we are commanding quite a good premium on the LAX market because that is the type of market that desires that type of service.
“You can’t just look at it in terms of the number of passengers, you look at the yield, which is the revenue that the flight generates, and, again, we’re completely happy with what we’re seeing.”
The airline launched the weekly LAX route with much fanfare on 6 Nov., stating that it would be a permanent fixture on its itinerary.
Previously, Whorms has stated that the airline’s new fleet of Boeing 737-8 planes have a carrying capacity of 160 passengers, and he expects around 4,000 passengers to utilise the service annually.
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With so many empty seats on the LAX-GCM route, Cayman Airways should examine ways of changing the departure time out of LAX. It is far too early in the day to enable folks who live 50+ miles outside LA to use it effectively. It involves choosing between 3/4 hours sleep before flying, or staying in an LAX hotel the previous night. If they could get a 10am slot, that would open up a slew of opportunities to enhance the attraction of the direct flight. We live 100 miles to the south of LAX and regularly fly from California to Cayman, but still choose to travel via MIA because of this inconvenient departure time.