Ease of access to the now trending and fun-filled Caribbean destination of Saint Lucia from the pivotal United Kingdom (UK) market has been significantly enhanced. Following high level discussions with government and tourism officials, premium carrier British Airways (BA) on Thursday, August 22, 2019, broke news of the introduction of two additional direct flights per week to Saint Lucia.
Taking effect next summer, the no-tag flights will commence July 4th, 2020 and will run through August 29th, 2020. The flight offers 3 classes of service and will add an average of 600 additional seats weekly to facilitate travel to the island.
In responding to the news of the additional flights, Prime Minister Hon. Allen Chastanet says, “We are elated with this latest development and the good fortune it spells for our continued efforts at growing visitor arrivals from the UK market.” He says “based on the 2019 Virgin Atlantic schedule with 3 weekly flights, we had a total of 798 seats. When taking the ‘tag factor’ into consideration, we actually had approximately 399 seats per week.”
Tourism Minister Hon. Dominic Fedee says, “This bold decision by British Airways, with whom Saint Lucia has a long-standing mutually beneficial relationship, certainly helps in filling the void left by Virgin Atlantic and their proposed pullout come next year. This new arrangement means that with more than 600 additional seats weekly, we now benefit from a net gain during July and August of more than 200 seats.”
Fedee says together with the additional flights, several other marketing initiatives are being explored as a means of imbuing added life into the British market. The additional flights will bring British Airway’s scheduled direct service from London to Saint Lucia up from 7 to 9 flights weekly. Currently Saint Lucia is serviced by 14 direct BA flights that interconnect between London, Trinidad and Grenada.
