COME next month, Air Jamaica will begin increasing the number of daily flights from Jamaica to some of its 10 North America and six Caribbean gateways in a bid to make the national carrier more viable.

"We are making these changes to improve viability and earnings because, when that happens, it will make Air Jamaica more attractive to potential investors," said Paul Pennicook, senior vice-president of sales and marketing at Air Jamaica.

The package, which is being rolled out as the airline's summer schedule, will also see the company reintroducing some new flights, such as the early bird non-stop Kingston to Miami flight and the one-day fare to Fort Lauderdale.

Pennicook said that under a code share agreement with Virgin Atlantic, which comes into effect this month-end, Air Jamaica will sell tickets that will allow its passengers to fly to London Heathrow via Miami.

"In addition to being able to book to London through this arrangement, we also offer a free stopover in Miami for a couple of days - all for one fare," he told the Observer.

He said there would be no need to increase the fleet of aircraft for this increased schedule, as there were enough planes available to satisfy the needs of the market.
Pennicook told the Observer that these changes would prove to be a great improvement for the airline.

"We are making every effort to get our hands wrapped around our maintenance system to ensure that we have minimal disruptions from aircraft maintenance and stuff like that and, once we can get all that in place, we will be operating on time and being very reliable," he said.

Pennicook, who was addressing guests at the recent launch of the airline's summer schedule, further outlined that Air Jamaica would also have a triangular arrangement in other gateways, particular Orlando, which will allow their passengers to fly on a Virgin flight from Jamaica to that gateway en-route to London and back to Jamaica on one fare. The reverse will also be offered.

In addition, Air Jamaica will include a daily service to Orlando to accommodate the increased traffic the company has been seeing out of that gateway.

The airline will also now offer four daily flights to and from New York, and will be increasing its flights to six weekly to Los Angeles.

As for the Caribbean gateways, the 'Lovebird' will be increasing to four, flights to Grand Cayman and Curacao, while introducing non-stop flights to Nassau, Bahamas.
In addition, the airline will also begin offering daily non-stop flights to Barbados. "We currently fly there from New York and up to Jamaica, where we stop in a couple islands, however, beginning April 1 we will be doing Kingston to Barbados non-stop daily," he said. This, he added, is expected to be welcomed especially by the University of the West Indies community.

Meanwhile, William B Rodgers, acting president and chief executive officer of Air Jamaica, admits that the airline has been faced with many challenges in recent time, even as he gave the assurance that the airline will not fold.

Shirley Williams, chairman of Air Jamaica's Board, made it clear that Air Jamaica is here to stay, as she pleaded for patience to get the airline back to the intended standard.

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