BRENT PIN­HEIRO

brent.pin­heiro@guardian.co.tt

Since T&T’s bor­ders re­opened on Ju­ly 17, Caribbean Air­lines has been the on­ly ma­jor air­line fly­ing in­to this coun­try. That is, un­til Co­pa Air­lines be­gan ser­vice via its Pana­ma hub. If you’ve been won­der­ing when the rest of the air­lines are com­ing back, keep read­ing.

Amer­i­can Air­lines

Come No­vem­ber 2, Amer­i­can Air­lines (AA) will op­er­ate one dai­ly flight out of its Mi­a­mi (MIA) hub through to De­cem­ber 15. AA 2703 will de­part MIA at 10.31 am non­stop to POS, ar­riv­ing at 2.19 pm. The re­turn leg leaves POS at 3.19 pm and ar­rives in MIA at 7.25 pm. From De­cem­ber 16 through Jan­u­ary 4, Amer­i­can will ramp up op­er­a­tions with three dai­ly non­stop flights. From Jan­u­ary 5, trav­ellers can ex­pect two dai­ly flights. Amer­i­can will op­er­ate all flights with ei­ther Boe­ing 737-800 or Boe­ing 737 MAX 8 air­craft.

Photo: American Airlines

KLM Roy­al Dutch Air­lines

Eighty-two years af­ter be­com­ing the first air­line to es­tab­lish com­mer­cial pas­sen­ger ser­vice to Trinidad, KLM Roy­al Dutch Air­lines be­gins flights on Oc­to­ber 16. As part of KLM’s win­ter sched­ule, flights will op­er­ate three times week­ly on Mon­days, Thurs­days and Sat­ur­days un­til March 26, 2022. KL0781 de­parts Am­s­ter­dam (AMS) at 12.25 pm and ar­rives in POS at 6 pm af­ter a short lay­over in Bar­ba­dos (BGI). KLM is op­er­at­ing what is known as a tri­an­gle route, so the re­turn flight is di­rect to Am­s­ter­dam, in­stead of re­quir­ing pas­sen­gers to stop again in BGI. KL0782 de­parts POS at 7.35 pm and ar­rives in The Nether­lands at 10.30 am the next day. KLM will op­er­ate the route us­ing Air­bus 330-300 air­craft.

Unit­ed Air­lines

In­ter­est­ed in fly­ing di­rect­ly to Hous­ton, Texas? Then Unit­ed Air­lines is your on­ly op­tion (for now) to the Lone Star State. Unit­ed Air­lines will be­gin sched­uled dai­ly flights on De­cem­ber 16 out of George Bush In­ter­con­ti­nen­tal Air­port (IAH). UA 2353 de­parts Hous­ton at 5.05 pm, ar­riv­ing just af­ter mid­night at 12.27 am. UA 1459 de­parts POS at 1.05 am and ar­rives in Hous­ton at 5.08 am. Flights are op­er­at­ed us­ing Boe­ing 737-800 air­craft.

Jet­Blue

Ini­tial­ly set to re­sume ser­vice Sep­tem­ber 9, Jet­Blue pushed back the start date to Sep­tem­ber 26. The air­line blamed “re­cent gov­ern­ment re­quire­ments re­lat­ed to the coro­n­avirus” in an email re­sponse to in­quiries. Now Jet­Blue will op­er­ate four week­ly flights on Sun­days, Tues­days, Thurs­days and Fri­days from New York’s John F Kennedy In­ter­na­tion­al (JFK) to POS us­ing Air­bus A320 air­craft. B6 1817 de­parts JFK at 11.30 am and ar­rives in POS at 4.25 pm. The in­bound flight leaves POS at 5.30 pm and ar­rives in JFK at 10.41 pm. No word yet on flights out of Fort Laud­erdale (FLL), al­though tick­ets are book­able on their web­site for De­cem­ber 21 on­wards.

Air Cana­da

On De­cem­ber 3, ac­cord­ing to their web­site, Air Cana­da will re­sume ser­vice to POS out of the Toron­to Pear­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port (YYZ) on a twice week­ly sched­ule Tues­days and Fri­days. AC 984 leaves YYZ at 9.30 am for the just over five-hour jour­ney to POS, ar­riv­ing at 4.05 pm. One hour lat­er, at 5.05 pm, the re­turn flight de­parts for Toron­to, ar­riv­ing at 9.55 pm. Air Cana­da will op­er­ate the route us­ing Boe­ing 737 MAX 8 air­craft.

Vir­gin At­lantic

Ac­cord­ing to their web­site, Vir­gin At­lantic In­ter­na­tion­al re­sumes flights to To­ba­go on Jan­u­ary 1, 2022. VS 177 leaves from Lon­don Heathrow (LHR) at 9.10 am and ar­rives in To­ba­go (TAB) at 5 pm. This isn’t a non­stop flight, how­ev­er, as there is a short lay­over in Bar­ba­dos (BGI). VS 178 is an overnight flight, leav­ing To­ba­go at 6 pm. It stops to pick up pas­sen­gers in Bar­ba­dos, then con­tin­ues on to Heathrow with a sched­uled ar­rival time of 10 am the next day. Vir­gin At­lantic will use its Air­bus A330-300 air­craft to ser­vice the route twice week­ly on Tues­days and Sat­ur­days.

British Air­ways

British Air­ways (BA) is ex­pect­ed to re­sume ser­vice to T&T in De­cem­ber, with flights book­able on their web­site from De­cem­ber 10. BA 2159 will de­part Lon­don Gatwick (LGW) at 10 am and ar­rive in POS at 5 pm with a one-hour stopover in St. Lu­cia (UVF). BA 2158 leaves POS at 6.45 pm, stops in St Lu­cia for one hour, then con­tin­ues across the At­lantic, ar­riv­ing in Gatwick at 9.05 am.

To­ba­go flights start with BA 2157 de­part­ing at 9.25 am and ar­riv­ing at the ANR Robin­son Air­port (TAB) at 4.45 pm, af­ter a one-hour stopover in An­tigua (ANU). BA 2156 de­parts To­ba­go at 6.30 pm and ar­rives at Gatwick at 8.55 am, with a quick stopover in An­tigua.

BA will op­er­ate the routes four times week­ly us­ing Boe­ing 777-200 air­craft. Trinidad flights will op­er­ate on Sun­days, Mon­days, Wednes­days and Fri­days. To­ba­go flights will op­er­ate on Sun­days, Mon­days, Thurs­days, and Fri­days.

Photo: Nick Morrish/British Airways

Still to be con­firmed

Sev­er­al air­lines have ei­ther not added T&T back to their sched­ules, or have not yet fi­nalised their sched­ules. These in­clude Suri­name Air­ways, West­Jet, Sun­wing, and Con­dor Air­lines.

Keep in mind that things can change sud­den­ly, forc­ing air­lines to make ad­just­ments to their sched­ules based on op­er­a­tional needs and gov­ern­ment reg­u­la­tions.

Re­main flex­i­ble, keep check­ing your des­ti­na­tion’s en­try re­quire­ments and have a back­up plan.