BA adds 5th flight to schedule
(CNS): The Cayman Islands’ record-breaking overnight tourism received another boost this month after British Airways confirmed that it will be adding a fifth flight to its weekly schedule to the Bahamas and the Cayman Islands next spring. The flights from Heathrow in London will be flying into and departing from Owen Roberts Airport from April on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays.
Diane Corrie, Commercial Manager for the Caribbean for British Airways, which is celebrating 100 years of flying this year, said she expected a boost in visitor arrivals from the United Kingdom to Cayman.
“This expansion in airlift perfectly complements initiatives to bring more visitors to the island and to offer increased options for travel to London and beyond from the Cayman Islands,” she said. She added that it would better serve the corporate community and its finance sector as well as others who travel frequently on British Airways for business, leisure or to visit friends and family.
The news comes as airlift to Owen Roberts continues to increase, helping to support the ongoing record-breaking figures for overnight guests. According to Tourism Minister Moses Kirkconnell, Cayman is on track to welcome half a million stay-over visitors by the end of 2019.
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‘British Airways, which is celebrating 100 years of flying this year.’ That’s a bit of a joke in the airline industry because what BA is actually celebrating is the 100th anniversary of the final amalgamation of numerous airlines (not always voluntarily) to create the current BA, which is actually owned by a parent company, IAG, based in Spain.
If you want a true 100th anniversary of a national flag carrier try Lufthansa – their ‘flying crane’ logo dates back to 1918.
Slightly off topic but why don’t we have anything like this – https://www.msn.com/en-gb/travel/news/voluntourism-with-sandals-resorts-jamaica/ar-BBWDU2m?li=AAJsPCA
One reason is (apparently) some years ago DoT decided that the Sandals-style resort didn’t fit into their ‘high-end tourism’ game plan and effectively killed any chance of all inclusive resorts being established here.
cayman can’t do budget or good value all inclusive deals…..
Sandals wanted to block beach access to only their guests and were denied.
12:46 FYI: It wasn’t Sandals who floated the idea of building AI resorts here with DoT, it was a major UK-based tour operator. Anyway, everyone else blocks off the beach access and gets away with it!
Says you. Sandals operates in a number of countries where they do not have exclusive access to the beach. The cost of flying here and the cost of living militate against all inclusive – the price would be prohibitive as a sticker price compared to room only in Cayman, or all inclusive elsewhere. Hotels would rather advertise the rooms – let the tourists find out later the cost of dinner and drinks.
Stayovers I find (from reading too many TripAdvisor reviews) know how to limit their expenses better than an AI hotel could do it for them. The quality expected and cost to provide it will never match up.
The only Europeans who could afford to visit Cayman for a beach holiday are the Monaco luxury yacht owners and they don’t come in their yachts as it takes too long. This represents about .001% of the European tourist travelers.
We need WestJet direct to Calgary, Canada.
No cayman does not need any more of you mafia.
I for one welcome this. I would rather more Europeans visiting.
Land of milk and honey. We are so fortunate to live in paradise.
8:08 In your dreams! They take one look at BA’s fares and the hotel room rates here and go somewhere else.
Exactly, we don’t need the XXXXX that do the EasyJet package holidays to Spain.
That’s the brits. What about the rest of Europe?????
Never mind another flight, how about a newer aircraft and cheaper fares?
Never happen. BA extended the use of the tired old B767s on this service by 18 months, told the crews working the route they would be getting 787 Dreamliners (got that from a senior member of a 767 cabin crew) then assigned a bunch of equally aging 777-200s to the route. Most people I know from the UK prefer to fly here through the USA.
If anyone still remembers when this was a DC-10 service they’ll also remember that BA flew it with their last few end-of-life aircraft inherited from BCal. I experienced two major tech incidents on those aircraft in the space of as many months, one was a complete hydraulic failure during push back at LGW.
As far as BA is concerned we’re a necessary inconvenience. They dropped us from their holiday itineraries years ago.
Having used this service regularly since it was flown LGW-GCM-NAS-LGW using DC-10s in the early 1990s I can say with some certainty that the vast majority of BA’s passengers on the route are transiting between the UK and the Bahamas. The same goes for when the Nassau service continues on to TCI. Most of time I rather doubt that BA are even covering the operating costs of flying 777s in and out of ORIA.
The real reason for the extra service seems to be (according to my UK sources) that BA are responding to the Bahamas’ recovery from Hurricane Dorian and that is not good news for the Cayman islands.
In operational terms flying the legs from Nassau to GCM and PLS must be a nightmare. I suspect the only reason BA haven’t handed these connections over to local airlines years ago is load factors – would CAL operate GCM-NAS for BA with an maximum uplift of only 60-70 passengers?
Certainly not factual in recent years!
9:43 Give us the figures – back your comment up because on my last trip we flew in on what was effectively an empty 777.
I think if you did the math on paid business class seats in Club World you might find that the GCM leg does more than enough to justify its existence.
1:18 Sounds like you’ve never used the service. In nearly 30 years I rarely saw more than a dozen passengers arriving or leaving here in business class and that won’t cover cost on a 777. My ex used to regularly get free upgrades on the route simply because they couldn’t sell the seats.
The majority of people coming from the UK to Cayman are staying with relatives. Reason being, is that Cayman is a total rip off to tourists. The cost of hotels and staying here is astronomical! It starts the minute they land with the high costs of taxis. Even wealthy people from Canada and the US complain. Other Caribbean islands are much more attractive for stay overs where costs are much more reasonable. Therefore, I wouldn’t knock the cruise ship tourists too much because in time that’s all this island is going to see. I’m sure some will say to look at the evidence of stay overs. Yes, maybe, but they don’t come back a second time in a hurry. If the cost doesn’t keep them away, the escalating crime certainly will.
I return here because I am an ex resident and I have many work colleagues and friends here that I love to see but it takes a lot of money out of my pocket which spoils the stay. I would have to think twice now to live here as it’s got unaffordable. You may not be paying the income taxes of other countries but you certainly have to pay extortionately on everything else. My daughter refused a job offer in Cayman with a certain team which definitely needed her expertise, but the salary wasn’t enough to meet the high living costs of Cayman. The CIG will not spend in this area even though it’s desperately needed. They need to get their priorities right. So, sorry Cayman, you really need to rethink your high costs. I really feel for Caymanians…….these extra flights are for business people not tourists!
This guy gets it.
Cost of living skyrocketing, wages staying the same. Doesn’t make sense to come here to work anymore for a lot of jobs.
probably more to with nassau than cayman….but who cares…its good news for most…
Sounds like the minister is using, locals, residents and permit holders to have his number increase, the island needs real tourist numbers, not a fake report.Get with the times greedy Boy.
Exactly. Plenty of back slapping and palm greasing here!
Maybe other Europeans will visit? Aren’t you tired of the same type of tourist visiting?
7:58 Why? They can go to plenty of cheaper and better destinations in this region without paying BA’s rip off fares.
Some topless French & Italian women on the beach would be a rather swell bonus.
Illegal. Mind you, so are beach vendors. Perhaps they need to ask Mac to fix it with Joey.
British airways, only brings family members that says with there family’s, and permit holders , real low numbers will use or hotels , not much help to our islands.
expats families/friends are the backbone of the cayman tourist numbers.
There are many Caymanian students who study in the UK and travel back and forth on BA.
Those family members that come here to visit spend money in the restaurants, visit the attractions, go diving, go shopping, etc.
The BA flights support jobs at Owen Roberts Airport.
And another thing… the post (mail service) between here and the UK is usually way faster than the post between here and the US. I often mail something to London and it gets there in 3-5 days, but when I send it to Florida it takes 10-14 days!
So I think these flights most certainly DO benefit Cayman in several ways.
Makes an easier flight for the wealthy arabs and Chinese. I would like to have different tourists visiting rather than the port with the cheap Americans. Wouldn’t you?
Don’t forget the Russians!
No, please let’s forget the Russians.
Always good to have some Russian laundered money into our real estate.
Here’s an out of the box idea. Lower the company fees and all related fees if the directors/shareholders make an annual/biennial visit to the island for their company meetings.
8:08 It also makes an easier flight for people who for various reasons can’t transit through the USA.
If true you should be welcoming the family visitors as they are spending money in our shops and restaurants while here and there are gov’t taxes in and out.
I’ve had a few friends over from the UK to stay with me and while enjoying the visit they’ve been appalled by how expensive everything is here. One told me that my monthly CUC bill is more than their quarterly electricity bill back home in the Winter months. They went shopping and spent more on incidentals than their core weekly food shop in the UK. That’s why we don’t get many tourists from the UK and Europe.
That’s just because the pound is so weak. When I started university in London in 2007 one pound was still worth $2. Pay and prices have not increased to match in the UK but when the pound is taken overseas then the pinch is felt. Same goes for the Euro.
3:46 It’s nothing to do with the exchange rate. It’s just that things here are too damned expensive compared with other destinations in the region, particularly when you factor in the completely artificial 1.25 $CI/$US exchange rate. Back in the mid-1990s when the tourist exchange rate dropped as low as £1=$1.30 we still had plenty of visitors from the UK but not now, particularly since places like Cuba and Costa Rica opened up.
Tourist from the UK can do a one-week all inclusive break in a good hotel in Cuba for about the same as the return economy LHR-GCM fare on BA. That’s the problem.
Cuba and Costa Rica come with language barrier and crime and safety issues.