Brent Pin­heiro

brent.pin­heiro@guardian.co.tt

Al­most 5 years af­ter first an­nounc­ing its in­ten­tion to fly be­tween Trinidad and Puer­to Ri­co, Caribbean Air­lines(CAL) op­er­at­ed its first flight to San Juan to­day. BW290, op­er­at­ed by one of CAL’s ATR72-600s, de­part­ed Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al at 10:55 am bound for the Luis Muñoz Marín In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port - land­ing just af­ter 1 pm lo­cal time.

Min­utes be­fore to­day’s flight took off, Caribbean Air­lines CEO Garvin Med­era told the 60 pas­sen­gers and spe­cial­ly in­vit­ed guests gath­ered at Gate 1 that the new route would meet the needs of every­one. “Puer­to Ri­co boasts the largest mall in the Caribbean, an ex­cit­ing des­ti­na­tion for those who love shop­ping. Be­yond shop­ping, this route al­so presents op­por­tu­ni­ties for stu­dent ex­changes, sport­ing com­pe­ti­tions, cruise con­nec­tions, and much more,” he says.

He al­so teased some of CAL’s up­com­ing routes say­ing “our ex­pan­sion in­to Puer­to Ri­co and very soon the French Caribbean is­lands of Mar­tinique and Guade­loupe and the British Vir­gin Is­lands (Tor­to­la) un­der­scores our mis­sion to be the air­line of choice.”

Med­era first an­nounced the car­ri­er’s in­ten­tion to serve the French West In­dies, start­ing with Mar­tinique, at the ACI Air­port Day held in Trinidad last year. In that an­nounce­ment, a start date of 4th quar­ter 2023 was giv­en, how­ev­er, the route is yet to be launched. No rea­son for the de­lay has been giv­en. CAL’s Guade­loupe flights are al­so ex­pect­ed to be­gin lat­er this year.

Ser­vice to des­ti­na­tion Puer­to Ri­co is part of a se­ries of plans for re­gion­al ex­pan­sion, sev­er­al of which had to be put on hold when the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic hit. For Jan Fer­nan­dez Tole­do, a Puer­to Ri­can artist turned or­gan­ic farmer who has called Canaan, To­ba­go home since 2003, the de­lay was dev­as­tat­ing. “My dad died a few days be­fore the clos­ing of the air­port be­cause of COVID and I could not hug my fam­i­ly for a year and a half,” she says.

Al­most 4 years lat­er, this in­au­gur­al flight couldn’t come soon enough for her. Fly­ing from To­ba­go to Puer­to Ri­co was once a 24-hour af­fair, in­volv­ing an overnight stay in Trinidad and then a com­bi­na­tion of planes and taxis to get to her fam­i­ly in Old San Juan - a jour­ney that could cost her up to US$1,500. “I cried when I read the news,” she told Guardian Me­dia. “The day it was an­nounced, I went straight to the air­port in To­ba­go and bought my tick­et for the maid­en flight,” she added.

Fron­tier Air­lines, an ul­tra-low-cost car­ri­er based in Den­ver, Col­orado, al­so launched di­rect flights be­tween Trinidad and Puer­to Ri­co last Thurs­day. Fron­tier has re­port­ed­ly seen a lot of de­mand for tick­ets with 176 pas­sen­gers head­ing to Puer­to Ri­co on the in­au­gur­al ser­vice. The Air­bus A320-200 op­er­at­ing the route has a ca­pac­i­ty for 186 pas­sen­gers. Jonathon Kauf­man, se­nior di­rec­tor of net­work plan­ning for Fron­tier Air­lines says while the num­bers are im­pres­sive, he ex­pects it to sta­bilise in the com­ing months. "Com­ing in it was half full, so it's ear­ly days, di­rec­tion­al im­bal­ance, more folks go­ing out to vis­it Puer­to Ri­co and the US but over the next few weeks that will sta­bilise and be about equal in both di­rec­tions," he told Guardian Me­dia at last Thurs­day's launch. 

While Fron­tier and Caribbean Air­lines do not cater to the same tar­get mar­ket, they both will be look­ing to fill seats - Fron­tier of­fer­ing over 1,100 seats week­ly to CAL’s week­ly 400+ of­fer­ing.

Caribbean Air­lines will op­er­ate 3x week­ly flights to San Juan, Puer­to Ri­co on Sun­days, Tues­days, and Fri­days. This is the air­line’s 5th US des­ti­na­tion.