Brent Pin­heiro

brent.pin­heiro@guardian.co.tt

One day af­ter lo­cal car­ri­er Caribbean Air­lines an­nounced its in­tro­duce ser­vice to San Juan, Puer­to Ri­co out of Trinidad, Amer­i­can ul­tra-low cost car­ri­er Fron­tier Air­lines yes­ter­day an­nounced its in­ten­tion to op­er­ate a sim­i­lar route.

The air­line is of­fer­ing a one-way fare of US$29 from Puer­to Ri­co to Trinidad and from Trinidad to Puer­to Ri­co, the low­est fare is US$79.

Start­ing Ju­ly 11 2024, Fron­tier Air­lines plans to fly non­stop be­tween Trinidad’s Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port (POS) and Puer­to Ri­co’s Luis Muñoz Marin In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port (SJU) three times a week us­ing its Air­bus A320 air­craft.

As an ul­tra-low cost air­line, Fron­tier’s air­craft are con­fig­ured with high-den­si­ty seat­ing of up to 186 seats on its Air­bus A320 fleet.

Fares are al­so un­bun­dled, which means that cus­tomers pay sep­a­rate­ly for an­cil­lary ser­vices such as seat as­sign­ments, hand lug­gage, checked bag­gage and in­flight prod­ucts.

On Sun­days, Thurs­day and Fri­days, F9281 de­parts SJU at 12:11pm ar­riv­ing in POS at 2:02 PM. The re­turn flight, F9280, de­parts POS at 3:14pm ar­riv­ing in Puer­to Ri­co at 5:07pm.

On Wednes­day, CAL an­nounced plans to fly to Puer­to Ri­co from Port-of-Spain, via Bar­ba­dos on Tues­days, Fri­days and Sun­days from Ju­ly 14, 2024. . The re­turn flights, al­so via Bar­ba­dos, op­er­ate on Mon­days, Wednes­days, and Sat­ur­days.

Flights will be op­er­at­ed by Caribbean Air­lines’ ATR 72-600s with 68 to 72 econ­o­my-class seats. The tick­ets went on sale yes­ter­day, with its low­est prices start­ing at US$192 one way from Trinidad.

Both air­lines re­quire the ap­proval of the Trinidad & To­ba­go Civ­il Avi­a­tion Au­thor­i­ty. CAL al­so needs reg­u­la­to­ry ap­proval of the Bar­ba­dos gov­ern­ment.

Fron­tier Air­lines is a new en­trant to T&T’s avi­a­tion sec­tor, but op­er­ates flights to 11 oth­er des­ti­na­tions in the Caribbean out of its Puer­to Ri­co hub. T&T is the air­line’s 12th Caribbean des­ti­na­tion.

Fron­tier Air­lines’ net­work and op­er­a­tions de­sign VP, Josh Flyr said, "We are thrilled to be­gin serv­ing con­sumers as they trav­el to and from Trinidad, the lat­est ad­di­tion in our rapid­ly ex­pand­ing op­er­a­tions across the Caribbean. By pro­vid­ing af­ford­able and con­ve­nient trav­el to Port of Spain, we are pleased to be a valu­able part­ner in the is­land’s vi­tal and vi­brant tourism in­dus­try.”

Al­so com­ment­ing on the news, gen­er­al man­ag­er of Air­ports Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Hay­den New­ton says, “We are de­light­ed to have Fron­tier Air­lines fly­ing to our is­lands as we con­tin­ue to in­crease the ease with which we con­nect trav­el­ers to the world.”

Com­ment­ing on the news, Caribbean Air­lines’ CEO Garvin Med­era said “We are ex­cit­ed to ex­pand our pas­sen­ger and car­go ser­vices to San Juan, Puer­to Ri­co, as part of our on­go­ing ef­fort to bet­ter con­nect the Caribbean. This move is cru­cial to our growth strat­e­gy and rep­re­sents our com­mit­ment to of­fer­ing our cus­tomers con­ve­nient and re­li­able trav­el and trade op­tions."

This would be the sixth North Amer­i­can des­ti­na­tion for Caribbean Air­lines. The oth­ers are Mi­a­mi, Fort Laud­erdale, Or­lan­do, New York and Toron­to.

CAL was grant­ed a for­eign air car­ri­er per­mit by the US De­part­ment of Trans­porta­tion for Puer­to Ri­co and sev­er­al oth­er routes on Sep­tem­ber 21, 2023. The air­line chose not to launch the flights last year. In­stead, the ma­jor­i­ty state-owned air­line fo­cussed on build­ing out its East­ern Caribbean ser­vices in a bid to fill the void left by LI­AT (1974).

Pas­sen­gers hold­ing T&T pass­ports re­quire a visa to fly to Puer­to Ri­co, which is an un­in­cor­po­rat­ed ter­ri­to­ry of the Unit­ed States.

Com­par­ing CAL and Fron­tier

All-in fares*US$393.60*US$488.33^

Start date*Ju­ly 14*Ju­ly 11

Air­craft*ATR 72-600*Air­bus A320

Seats*68 to 72*up to 186

Trav­el time*4 hours and 10 min­utes*1 hour and 51 min­utes

Route*One stop (through B'dos)*Non-stop

^All-in fares in­clude seat se­lec­tion, hand lug­gage, checked bag­gage and in­flight prod­ucts such as drinks and snacks.