Dozens of commercial airline flights servicing Bermuda will stop, as part of seasonal changes of services to Newark, Miami and the Azores, starting next month.
United Airlines flights to Newark will end on September 6 with the temporary suspension of the daily flights run by American Airlines to Miami.
Direct service to Miami is expected to resume in November with “expanded connectivity options out of its Charlotte and Philadelphia hubs”.
The weekly summer service to Ponta Delgada run by Sata Airlines is set to end in September with flights scheduled to resume in December.
Meanwhile, Air Canada will reduce its service out of Toronto to Bermuda by cutting their weekly flights down from five to two. Service will continue on Fridays and Saturdays, in addition to a single flight on Wednesday, September 7, after the Labour Day holiday weekend.
British Airways service to London’s Heathrow is expected to run four days a week , while Delta’s flights to Atlanta and New York’s JFK Airport are expected to remain unchanged.
JetBlue service to both Atlanta and JFK is also expected to run throughout the month, but neither flight is included on the September 30 schedule.
Overall, a total of 188 commercial flights are scheduled to depart from Bermuda during the month of September compared to 260 flights in August, which is one day longer.
The news drew scathing criticism by bloggers against Premier David Burt “and his TA”, with one blogger saying it was “so sad nobody in the PLP can stand up against this”.
“What a complete waste of space you all are,” the blogger added.
But another blogger said: “The TAs are partially to blame but the fact is without the Southampton Princess there are not enough top quality hotels to pull people to Bermuda, so load numbers drop and it is not as profitable to fly to Bermuda as other destinations.
“Until it opens, and that is probably two years off at best we will have the same issues. I am just hoping Burt is delaying the SP construction start date to coincide with the PLP Delegates Conference!”
Another blogger wrote: “Air arrivals are not stable. Burt is killing a tourism recovery with his TA and other border restrictions.”
And another blogger said: “That’s a drop of 72 flights a month! The PLP needs to stop complaining about paying the minimum guarantee at the airport – the failure is in their development and management of the tourism industry!”
At last check the number of comments were still rising, with another blogger stating: “This is catastrophic. The number of options to Bermuda are declining constantly – and the flights still have low load factor. No hotels means no tourists means no flights. And the PLP are just sitting fat and happy about it. Do they have any clue? Everywhere else you fly the flights are sold out every time!”
