American Airlines, American Eagle Cut Flights to Caribbean

Text of report by Caribbean Media Corporation news agency website on 30 May

San Juan, Puerto Rico: Two US-based carriers have announced a reduction in their services to the Caribbean as they grapple to deal with soaring oil prices on the world market.

American Airlines said it would no longer serve Antigua, St Maarten and Santo Domingo with jet service out of San Juan, while American Eagle announced a reduction in its Caribbean schedule from 55 to 33 daily departures out of San Juan from September 3.

American Eagle said it would eliminate daily flights from San Juan to Aruba as well as to Samana in the, Dominican Republic. Both destinations will continue to be served daily from Miami.

The airline said that its 33 daily flights to a number of Caribbean destinations would now include Anguilla; Antigua; Barbados; Bonaire; Canouan; Dominica; Martinique; Dominican Republic; Guadeloupe; Nevis; St Croix; St Kitts; St Lucia; St Marten; St Thomas; Tortola; and Trinidad.

In a message to employees, American Eagle’s chief executive officer, Peter Bowler said that “the crisis in the airline business is real, and the steps American is taking to reduce its schedule are necessary”.

Oil prices climbed to nearly US130 dollars abarrel earlier this week.

On Thursday, Caribbean tourism officials said they have developed a strategy to deal with the energy crisis and its potentially crippling impact on regional tourism. The ministers met in Antigua for a one-day meeting and announced a plan to set up several committees to deal with four critical areas – marketing the region, financial guarantees for airlines, issues concerning regional carriers, and hubs.

Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO) Chairman and St Lucia’s Tourism Minister Allen Chastanet, who called the meeting, said that top of the list of priorities would be addressing the significant reduction in airlift through Puerto Rico which is a critical bridge to the lucrative United States market.

“The Puerto Rico hub is very critical to this region not only for the airlift to land-based properties, but clearly the potential implications it may have on our cruise sector as well,” he said.

Originally published by Caribbean Media Corporation news agency website, Bridgetown, in English 1759 30 May 08.

(c) 2008 BBC Monitoring Americas. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.