American low-cost carrier Spirit Airlines has announced the addition of flights to Montego Bay, Jamaica from the Baltimore-Washington International Airport in Maryland, USA. The carrier is scheduled to start the service on March 22, 2018.
Elated by the announcement, Jamaica’s Minister of Tourism, Hon. Edmund Bartlett stated that, “We are seeing solid results. This is yet another indication on the heightening demand for Jamaica and augurs very well for our tourism growth strategy .Montego Bay will be the second international route for Spirit from the Baltimore-Washington International Airport. The carrier only started service to Cancun, Mexico last month.”
Currently the airline operates nonstop flights between its Fort Lauderdale, Florida hub and Montego Bay and Kingston. Spirit is an American low cost carrier headquartered in Florida and operates scheduled flights throughout the United States and in the Caribbean, Mexico, Latin America, and South America.
The additional flights comes just after major U.S. airline Southwest Airlines increased their flight itinerary to include two daily non-stop flight service between Fort Lauderdale and Montego Bay – adding another 52,000 new seats in and out of Jamaica and increasing connectivity to other US cities. This bring to roughly 7 the number of daily flights into Montego Bay by Southwest, which also runs non-stop flights between Montego Bay and Orlando, Florida; Houston, Texas; Chicago, Illinois and Baltimore, Maryland.
Montego Bay will also see several new non-stop flights, with some started already, including Vancouver, Canada; Munich, Germany; Warsaw, Poland; Madrid, Spain and elsewhere. Discussions are ongoing on more flights from other destinations around the world.
The Minister also explained that, “Jamaica has 40,000 additional airline seats committed for winter from Canada, with Sunwing confirming that they will operate over 100,000 airline seats for the season, a historic development, including nonstop flights between Montego Bay and Vancouver, Canada’s third largest metropolitan area.”
Chief Executive Officer of MBJ Airports, the operators of Montego Bay’s Sangster International Airport, Dr Rafael Echevarne said that the facility is prepared to seamlessly handle the projected influx in passenger arrivals.
He went on to disclose that half-way through the 30-year concession MBJ Airports Ltd has had to run the airport, the board of directors approved expenditure of US$40 million to invest in further improvements in 2018 on infrastructure. This will include renovations to the ticketing area, the Immigration hall and other public areas.
This is in addition to the US$24 million now being spent improving the apron, taxiway and runway.
