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New Air Jamaica 'express' service - Airline reshaping intra-island travel
published: Friday | August 3, 2007
An Air Jamaica plane lowers its landing gear in preparation for landing at the Sangster International Airport in Montego Bay. - File
Air Jamaica is to implement a shuttle service between Kingston and Montego Bay, using a small 125-seater Airbus A319 craft, in a reorganisation of its intra-island movement of travellers.
The new service will fly five to six round trips per day between the cities.
Airline President Michael Conway is selling the move as a cost containment strategy, saying it would reduce the maintenance bill on the large planes that now do the hops on the completion of flights into Jamaica.
"All of our flights into Jamaica arrive at either Montego Bay or NMIA and have a unique passenger makeup: tourists destined for the north coast resorts, and Jamaicans or visiting friends and relatives whose predominant destination is Kingston," said Conway as reported by state news agency JIS.
"As a result, each of our arrivals in Jamaica requires a further movement of passengers to the other major city on a 20-minute flight. It's not very efficient to fly large aircraft on such a short segment."
Air Jamaica does not have an A319 in its fleet, suggesting that the airline either intends to add another craft or replace one of the 16 it flies internationally. Several attempts to reach Conway were unsuccessful, but he has made the point that the fleet rationalisation programme under way could mean an increase or right-sizing of the operation, and not necessarily a cut in the number of planes.
Last year, it cost the airline US$62.7 million to keep its fleet in good order, but according to figures published by the Finance Ministry Air J hopes to push costs down to US$49.7 million this year. Maintenance as a portion of operating expenses rode above 12 per cent, but the new estimates would pull it down to 10 per cent.
"Maintenance of an aircraft isn't just tied to hours of use, but also to the number of takeoffs and landings," said the airline president.
"By utilising a smaller jet aircraft, such as an A319 with approximately 125 seats, operating 5-6 roundtrips per day on a reliable basis between MBJ and NMIA, Air Jamaica can eliminate all of the expensive cross island flying being done today by the larger aircraft. This will also enable the larger aircraft to be immediately deployed on a return long-haul routing."
The fleet now comprises all Airbuses - eight A320, six A321 and two A340.
The A321s are to be replaced with Boeing 757s, while the A340s are to be returned to Airbus in October.
"The comparably sized Boeing 757 aircraft has 30 per cent more payload capability and will solve most of our baggage challenges out of New York and Toronto to Jamaica and the Eastern Caribbean," said Conway.
"With its extended range, the 757 will also provide us with the opportunity to serve any major city in South America on a non-stop basis from Jamaica."
The changes are all being guided by a new business plan that Air Jamaica sold to lawmakers last year as the way to pull the loss-making carrier out of the red.
Air Jamaica, which was incorporated in 1966, has had 38 years of losses that have accumulated to US$1.1 billion in 2006. The national carrier reverted to 100 per cent state ownership in December 2004, after a decade under the control of the Air Jamaica Acquisition Group, a consortium of private investors led by hotelier Gordon 'Butch' Stewart.
Having now sold the biggest drag on its bottomline, the London route, Conway remains confident that the airline will hit breakeven point by 2009, and start showing a profit the next year.
He reports that passenger loads increased by 41,400 for the first six months of 2007, and that related revenues were up 8.4 per cent.
Last year, the airline posted unaudited revenues of US$392 million, US$24 million of which was from cargo operations, and projects income growth to $401 million in the current period.
The intra-island passenger movement programme, part of the fleet rationalisation plan, won't copy the former Air Jamaica Express, said Conway.
The subsidiary airline, before its closure, operated out of the Tinson Pen aerodrome in Kingston, flying small planes to Sangster International in Montego Bay and aerodromes in Negril and Portland. The new service will operate between Kingston's Norman Manley International and Sangster's.
Gleaner and JIS reports
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