American Airlines plans daily Dallas-Cayman route
(CNS): As the tourism sector continues its post-pandemic recovery, American Airlines has announced it will launch a non-stop service between Dallas Fort Worth and Grand Cayman at the end of the year. The Cayman Islands Department of Tourism issued a release saying that it was working closely with the airline to promote the seasonal route, which will run through April 2025.
According to the latest DoT statistics, 429,284 visitors flew into the Cayman Islands last year, which was 73,455 fewer than 2019, the last full pre-pandemic year and a record breaking year for tourism.
Neither January nor February 2024 reached the levels of 2019 or 2020, which was looking like another record-breaking year before the borders were closed in March that year.
A total of 38,446 visitors arrived by plane in January 2024, which was about 1,500 more than in January 2023 but about 4,400 fewer than in January 2020. The arrival numbers in February 2024 reached 41,608, which was almost 4,000 more than the same month in 2023 but around 9,100 fewer than in 2020.
Tourism Minister Kenneth Bryan continues to vigorously defend the importance of tourism to Caymanians working in the sector against questions over how much visitors help or hinder the local economy and the environment. The need for more airline seats is one of the tourism ministry’s goals for 2024 and American Airlines is one of the US-based carriers that officials hope will increase the airlift.
“Dallas has always been an important market for the Cayman Islands and the increase to daily service is a strong indicator that Cayman remains a preferred destination for Texans,” said Tourism Director Rosa Harris.
“We value American Airlines’ partnership and the confidence they have in the destination. We look forward to welcoming new and repeat visitors from Dallas to enjoy what the Cayman Islands has to offer from ringing in the new year on Seven Mile Beach, enjoying Cayman Cookout in January or travelling for a romantic getaway or family vacation,” she added.
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Category: Local News, Travel
Tourism is does far more damage to Cayman than good. Covid was a blessing in showing how people should change to a different sector.
It is insane to petulantly demand the destruction of Cayman for *everyone* merely to satiate the greed of a tiny minority of politicians taking kickbacks from developers (see Wendy’s superb September 2023 editorial: https://caymannewsservice.com/2023/09/donkeys-developers-and-deaf-ears), and a small number of Caymanians working in the sector. Most people in the sector are the ‘imported poverty’ of comments section fame: primarily Jamaicans.
Cruise tourists are pests, who further clog up the island, and make life for residents a nightmare. The industry can’t collapse fast enough.
There’s also no business case for long haul tourist flights from anywhere else to bring in more stay over tourists, because:
1. Those flights will be more expensive than existing warm weather options, so tourists won’t be interested.
2. Cayman is already too expensive for most tourists, in large part because a bloated, incompetent and corrupt CIG and civil service/de facto welfare scheme are funded by 20%/22% import taxes on everything entering.
3. Cayman is now a [far] more expensive version of Miami. If tourists want that, they can go to Miami; if they want undeveloped islands, there are cheaper options. Cayman should forget tourism, and focus on increasing offshore work. The government hasn’t screwed that up yet (but with the increases in fees, beneficial ownership changes, and lack of competitiveness with Dubai, Singapore, etc. it’s on track to do so).
What would be worthwhile, as other commentators have already said, is reintroducing early and late flights to Miami, therefore enabling people to travel to different destinations in the US in a single day rather than forcing them into multiple days of travel. Obviously, this doesn’t pander to Kenneth’s ego or any politicians’ desperate desire to buy wotes, and so will never be adopted. Plus ça change…
Barbados… What a joke
So AA think Dallas Cayman will make money, but CAL apparently doesn’t.
Let me get this straight, we are celebrating the reinstatement of GCM-DFW when they just stopped flying this route back in January 2024. Why didn’t AA just continue the regular flight schedule?
Bring back the daily late inbound flight from Miami and outbound early flight, it is by far the biggest problem with Cayman tourism at the moment. Most days you can’t get out of here until 11:30am. The flight would be booked out way in advance, residents are also desperate to not have to overnight each way when going somewhere. When it takes 2 days for tourists to get here and/or get back to their home city, all the other islands that don’t waste 2 days of holiday traveling, win the tourism business hands down.
Yes, and this is the kind of thing that CAL can do even if it isn’t ‘best airline business practice’ since their business is tourism. (Part of their business anyway.)
Very expensive for AA to have a crew overnight. Why doesn’t DOT subsidize the AA flight instead of Barbados? I know why because it would benefit the local population not just a handful of MP’s.
Most tourists want to have an early arrival and a later departure off the island, but it must match up with the connector flight. You are right though, there is absolutley no way one would fly two days to get to Cayman. We want the most direct, quickest route.
Can’t get legal recreational weed here because plenty people believe the NATO treaty is God, but yet I can fly over to Uncle Sam’s backyard and enjoy the highest quality recreational weed legally, soon daily..
so long as I pay my tax on the sale.
And here we are, in Cayman, still throwing money at a failed war on drugs.
“But Daddeh Charles up in UK won’t allow it!”
Stay bent over and take ya licks like the good little Caymanian your are then. We known to let other people dominant us to their benefit, anyway.
You try buying marijuana in Dallas and see what happens. Cause it sure isn’t legal, sales tax or no sales tax! And what the hey does NATO have to do with it? Were you high when you wrote this?
CBD Kratom Downtown Dallas
1517 Main St, Dallas, TX 75201, United States
Favorite ganja shop in Dallas. A pig dressed in lipstick is still a pig – might not be California weed but I get the same high as Jamaican weed.
Were you just being a miserable old fart when you wrote that? I fancy the people who oppose it oppose just because they want to control others, and it shows.
It’s not ganga at all. It’s CBD products derived from hemp. CBD has no psychoactive defect, unlike the THC in ganga. If you think you are getting the same high as Jamaican weed you are imagining it or should have a word with your dealer selling you the weed lol.
https://www.sunstatehemp.com/blog/is-cbd-legal-in-texas/#:~:text=The%20Federal%20Farm%20Bill%20and%20Texas%20Law&text=Following%20this%2C%20Texas%20Governor%20Greg,derived%20CBD%20products%20in%20Texas.
Confirmed exactly what I said – blowing smoke out your rear and never even partook.
“ganga” makes you sound like my racist grandfather. It’s 2024 – get with the times.
Let me make you sit down here: what is sold is hemp which is spiked with delta 8 THC. This is metabolized into the active form of THC which gets you “high”. It’s a legal loophole and yet another example of why this stupid war on a medically prescribed plant needs to end.
I think you might be abusing whatever substance you are on. Your comment was incoherent.
A necessarily selective, for concision, list of reasons why legalising cannabis is a lobotomised idea:
1. Health Risks and Disorders: The differentiation between medical and recreational cannabis use has blurred, leading to widespread self-medication without clear evidence for many claimed benefits. While cannabis shows potential for certain medical conditions, such as seizures (CBD) and nausea in cancer patients (THC), the evidence for pain management and other uses remains inconclusive. The development of cannabis use disorder and mental health issues, particularly among individuals with a family history of psychosis or schizophrenia, are major concerns. Additionally, the potency of cannabis has increased significantly, leading to more severe health effects and disorders, including a notable rise in cannabis-related psychotic disorders. This increase in potency and associated health risks has been observed globally, with admissions for cannabis-related psychotic disorders quadrupling worldwide (Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health: https://publichealth.jhu.edu, UN News: https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/03/1133557).
2. Societal and Moral Concerns: Arguments against legalization include concerns about cannabis as a gateway drug, its detrimental effects on cognitive skills and motivation, and moral issues related to altering one’s state of mind. Critics argue that legalizing another psychoactive substance could introduce further societal harms and reduce the perceived risks among youth, potentially leading to increased usage (The Liberty Champion: https://www.liberty.edu/champion/2023/02/cons-of-legalizing-recreational-marijuana-use).
3. Impact on Youth and Public Perception: Legalization contributes to a decreased perception of cannabis’s harm, especially among adolescents and young adults, potentially raising usage rates in these groups. The marketing of cannabis products, including edibles and vaping products in attractive packaging, is particularly concerning for its potential to target younger populations and encourage increased use (UN News: https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/03/1133557, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration: https://www.samhsa.gov/marijuana).
4. Increases in Driving Accidents and Crime: Following the legalization of cannabis in various states, there have been reports of increases in driving accidents and crime. For example, studies in Colorado and Washington have observed a rise in traffic-related fatalities and hospitalizations involving drivers who tested positive for THC. Moreover, some areas have reported an uptick in certain types of crime following legalization, challenging the notion that legalizing cannabis reduces crime rates by eliminating the illegal market (e.g. Matt Walsh, “ I changed my mind about legalising marijuana, this is why”, YouTube, April 2024: https://youtu.be/9frDNHLvqHY (17 minutes, accessed 4 April 2024)).
…On the other hand, if you want Caymanian children to fall *even* further behind expats’ children in educational and professional achievements (difficult to believe that’s possible, I know) and you want to glamourise and incentivise further crime in said Caymanian youth, then crack on. It’s your own people’s funeral.
Good post, 9:50. What are your views on alcohol?
Cayman’s draconian Covid lockdown sent our tourists to other Caribbean islands where they discovered some amazing places and they haven’t come back. It will be interesting to see how long it’s going to take to get back to pre Covid levels. It’s going to take a long time and a lot of work on our product and great flight connections. The flight connections are so bad now that AA doesn’t have the evening/early morning flight to Miami. This means you can’t get to Miami early enough to catch many flights and so many connections require passengers to over night. That was never the case before COVID. Cayma airways needs to cancel Barbados, Panama, Cuba and any other non-performing route and get our flight routes going again to Miami and Texas.
Wonder why tourist arrivals are down, two words, Two Expensive……😵💫😵💫😵💫
Cayman changed a lot during covid and not really for the better (for tourists). No more Calicos, Royal Palms, Tiki bar long gone. All the building has made the vibe on 7 mb unrecognizable. The roads no longer feel quaint, but feel like we are driving in a city back home. Crime has increased along with prices. It just doesn’t feel quite the same and along with that hotel and airfare prices are extremely high.
It seems so obvious! Texas is our No.1 tourist source and provides a gateway to the west coast. I hope this route is hugely successful. Interesting that we haven’t got back to pre-Covid air arrivals or connections. Lockdown really damaged our tourism product.
Let me guess, Saturday afternoon when the airport is quiet.
I thought the airlift story would be CAL expanding the frequency of the Barbados route.