Caribbean Airlines unfazed by growing competition on U.S. routes

Caribbean Airlines officials have recently said that the airline is not at all worried with the growing competition of U.S. routes. Media reports quoting the officials said that the airline has been performing exceedingly well on its Port of Spain-New York route despite the competition it is facing ever since the arrival of JetBlue Airways in late February 2014. The leading U.S. low-cost carrier JetBlue Airways is presently serving the Port of Spain-New York route with cheaper airfares to its customers.

The reports said that Caribbean Airlines is acknowledging that it is going to be impacted by the competition being posed by JetBlue Airways. The airline however said that it still remains unfazed by this and is continuing to show a strong passenger growth on the New York route during the summer, which is the airline’s peak period.

Providing details about its performance, Caribbean Airlines said that it has reported healthy passenger turnout on the Port of Spain-New York route during July this year. The airline said that the passengers taking direct flights to/from New York on Caribbean Airlines were also able to connect to other destinations on the route as well including Grenada, Tobago and Guyana.

The airline said that insofar as the Port of Spain-Fort Lauderdale route is concerned it continues to remain much ahead of its competitors. Caribbean Airlines revealed that it had conducted more roundtrip flights to Fort Lauderdale in July 2014, thus recording a significant increase in the number of passengers as compared to 2013.

With five weekly flights to Orlando and daily flights to Fort Lauderdale, Caribbean Airlines is presently operating most flights between the Caribbean and South Florida than what is being currently offered by any other airline.

Meanwhile, in a separate development, Caribbean Airlines has indicated that it is worrying that it might lose the concession for operating shuttle flights between Port of Spain and Tobago. This though however depends on the will of the Tobago House of Assembly and the manner in which it succeeds in lobbying the government for awarding the route to some other private operator instead of Caribbean Airlines. According to the Tobago House of Assembly, the Port of Spain-Tobago route can be better managed by a separate carrier and making it profitable.