Commercial air service resumed on a limited basis last week
at airports on St. Croix and Tortola, and they are set to resume Oct. 10 in
St. Maarten.
But while it's encouraging that those locations have joined
airports on St. Thomas and in the Puerto Rican cities of San Juan and
Aguadilla, which had already reopened in the wake of the September hurricanes
Irma and Maria, U.S. carriers expect service reductions and cuts to linger for
months to come.
United, for example, has suspended service to St. Thomas and
St. Maarten, both of which were battered by Hurricane Irma, until Dec. 19 and
has made its daily Newark-Aguadilla route weekly, also through Dec. 19.
JetBlue has suspended weekly Boston-St. Maarten service
through the winter and spring season and, at least until Jan. 1, will operate
New York JFK-St. Maarten twice a week instead of daily. The carrier has also
suspended its three weekly Boston-St. Thomas flights through Jan. 3.
Similarly, Spirit has canceled its weekly St. Maarten
service from Fort Lauderdale until at least February and, due to airport
conditions, will fly just twice per week from Fort Lauderdale to St. Thomas
instead of daily for the "foreseeable future."
American has taken a more cautious approach to scheduling,
having thus far only made service reductions to St. Croix, St. Martin, St.
Thomas and Turks and Caicos through November.
Southwest said it is taking a wait-and-see approach to its
winter Caribbean schedule. The carrier said it will launch Turks and Caicos
service on Nov. 5 as planned.
Delta, which offers service to San Juan, Turks and Caicos,
St. Thomas, St. Maarten and St. Croix among other Caribbean destinations, did
not respond to an inquiry about schedule changes.
Airlines last week were reluctant to discuss how the
lingering impacts of Irma and Maria, both in terms of actual damages and as a
result of perception, could affect revenue and Caribbean travel through the
coming winter and spring.
Southwest, though, did say in a Sept. 27 Securities and
Exchange Commission (SEC) filing that it expects a $100 million impact from
natural disasters during the third quarter, and Delta reported last week that
Irma would cost the company an estimated $120 million.
At a media briefing in late September, American, which has
the largest presence among the four major U.S. airlines (American, Delta,
United and Southwest) in the Caribbean as well as in San Juan, declined to
estimate how much the storms would cost.
Airline industry analyst Bob Mann of R.W. Mann and Co. said
that although numerous Caribbean destinations were spared the wrath of Irma and
Maria, the storms could nevertheless depress demand throughout the region this
winter.
"We, as a nation looking for leisure travel, don't
discriminate well between destinations in the same regions," he said. "Unless
you are terribly cognizant of the distinctions of what actually occurred, it
would be hard to assume that demand wouldn't be pretty seriously impacted."
As a proportion of their operations, JetBlue would likely be
the airline most impacted by a broad slump in the Caribbean market this winter.
JetBlue competes with American for the largest Caribbean
operation of any U.S. airline, offering 207 flights in and out of the region on
an average day, about 20% of its total flights. Thirty of JetBlue's 101
destinations are in the Caribbean, and it offers the most flights of any
carrier to San Juan.
Meanwhile, 11 of the 59 destinations to which Spirit flies
are in the Caribbean, though the carrier said last week that the region
accounts for just 3.7% of its capacity.
Spirit cited a reduced number of lodging options as a reason
for cutting back on Caribbean service.
"We will continue to assess regularly and resume full
service as infrastructure and demand allow," the carrier said.