by Brian Major
Last updated: 7:02 PM ET, Thu May 12, 2022
Officials at Delta Airlines this week told members of the Jamaica Tourist Board (JTB)'s leadership it increased the country's airline seat capacity for the 2022/23 season by more than one percent compared with the same period in pre-pandemic 2019/20.
Delta also re-launched daily Jamaica flights from Detroit and Minneapolis during 2022 and 2023 for the first time since the pandemic's beginning, said officials.
Donovan White, JTB's director of tourism, called Delta's expanded service "A distinct vote of confidence in the ongoing recovery of tourism to Jamaica."
He added, "This is a clear indication from one of our top airline partners that we are well on our way toward returning our stopover arrivals to growth over 2019, the year when we received our highest number of stopover visitors to date."
Delta offers non-stop flights to Montego Bay's Sangster International Airport from Boston, Minneapolis, New York and Atlanta and to Kingston's Norman Manley International Airport from Atlanta via multiple weekly departures.
Earlier this month, JetBlue officials told Jamaica government and tourism officials it will offer 40 percent more seats in operation between the United States and Montego Bay by July of 2022 than the carrier offered during the same month in July 2019, prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
"We continue to see positive signs of a strong recovery for Jamaica's tourism and more seats mean more arrivals," said Edmund Bartlett, Jamaica's minister of tourism.
"Jamaica is perhaps the most connected destination in the region," added Bartlett. "This has helped us to attract more visitors. We have been focused and always looking ahead even in the midst of the worst of the pandemic. We are now reaping the rewards."
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