Low-cost provider Southwest Airways has introduced that it’ll now offer a weekly flight from Kansas Metropolis, Missouri, to Jamaica.
The flight will arrive on the Sangster Worldwide Airport (SIA) in Montego Bay on Saturdays all through the winter season.
Some 114 passengers and 6 crew members arrived on the inaugural flight on Oct. 7, which was greeted by tourism stakeholders and native officers, together with the Minister of Tourism Edmund Bartlett.
The minister mentioned that new flights converse to how well-connected Jamaica is as a vacation spot in america.
“We cowl 18 gateways that join us to over 100 cities throughout the U.S. That makes Jamaica essentially the most linked Caribbean vacation spot to america,” he famous.
Greeting the passengers, he noticed how happy they had been to be visiting the island.
“I have to confess that it’s the happiest bunch of passengers that I’ve ever welcomed to Jamaica, from the toddlers proper as much as the aged,” he expressed.
Deputy Mayor of Montego Bay, Councillor Richard Vernon, who was additionally on the airport to greet the passengers mentioned Montego Bay was completely happy to welcome new flight.
“Jamaica was chosen, however it’s a very particular factor when Montego Bay particularly is chosen, so we’re completely happy and we’re trying ahead to the extra connectivity that we’re having to America,” he outlined.
In his remarks, Chief Govt Officer at MBJ Airports, operators of SIA, Shane Munroe, that the service from Kansas Metropolis “will deliver a brand new and different sort of passenger to the nation”.
“Usually, we’re nicely served from the east and our visitors continues to develop from the japanese coast of america, however now we’re seeing progress within the Midwest.
“We stay up for the change between the cities and, actually, we count on that this service will proceed to develop, and we stay up for extra flights added to this route within the close to future,” Munroe mentioned.
Report vacationer arrivals for 2023
The Tourism Minister mentioned that the island is on monitor to shut out the 12 months with some 2.9 million stopover guests and expressed optimism of surpassing the three-million mark in stopover arrivals subsequent 12 months, with earnings of greater than $4.5 billion.
Extra tourism information from Jamaica:
Final month, Bartlett mentioned that the nation witnessed its most strong summer time season in recorded historical past. He shared that stopover guests surpassed 800,000.
He added that together with the cruise passenger figures—which is a further 230,000—the overall variety of guests exceeded a million.
“ [We had] just a bit over one million guests within the interval and we earned US$1.5 billion for Jamaica on this summer time, the very best and finest that we’ve had,” Bartlett mentioned.
