ON THE COVER
Travel on commercial flights to Jamaica dips in 2024, but skies busy with private jets
Published:Friday | January 10, 2025 | 12:06 AM
Passenger movements through the Kingston international airport was up, but traffic was down for Montego Bay in 2024.
Overall, the country’s two largest airports recorded a decline in passenger traffic by about two per cent.
New airlift, hype concerts, and private jets were not enough to surpass the 2023 record level of arrivals. The total passenger movements at both airports – Norman Manley International in Kingston and Sangster International in Montego Bay – amounted to 6.8 million. In terms of actual people, the volumes would be be around half that number since ‘passenger movements’ counts both arriving and departing travellers.
The third airport, Ian Fleming International located in the parish of St Mary, handles only a few hundred passengers, and its numbers were insufficient to offset the 125,700 decline in total passenger traffic at the big airports.
Delano Seiveright, senior tourism adviser and strategist in the Ministry of Tourism, noted that about 7,000 additional passengers landed at Norman Manley International Airport during the final week of the year.
“It was a busy holiday season indeed. No doubt, the Joe Bogdanovich led and organised New Year’s Eve show accounts for a fair share of those increased numbers,” Seiveright told the Financial Gleaner.
That equated to a one-quarter rise in arrivals for that period in Kingston. Additionally, the number of bookings on travel sites for stays over the New-Year period increased by one-third above Christmas levels, according to data from Airdna, which tracks data from Airbnb and Vrbo.
On Monday, the Pacific Airport Group released travel data for the 12 airports it operates in Mexico and the two in Jamaica.
Total passenger movements at Sangster International Airport amounted to 5.06 million in 2024, which was 3.0 per cent less than a year ago; and 1.78 million at Norman Manley International Airport, reflecting an increase of 1.7 per cent, the Mexico-based airport operator reported.
Seiveright said Jamaica’s “aggressive” airlift strategy in 2024 was generally successful, particularly out of gateways in Canada, the United States, Europe, and Latin America. The visits also included well-known personalities, such as former UK prime minister John Major, actor Idris Elba, rapper Busta Rhymes, artiste Shatta Wale and others, many of whom flew in on private jets.
70 private jets
“As it relates to the heavy private jet traffic, that was primarily celebrities and other high-net-worth individuals vacationing along the north coast and other parts of the island,” Seiveright said.
Over 70 private jets entered Jamaica in the final week of the year with 18 arriving on December 23 alone, Seiveright said. In the past, the record was 26 jets in one day, but the circumstances surrounding those flights were unclear. The Financial Gleaner tracked 18 of these private jets on Flightaware.com, which tracks flights, globally. Three of the jets were nameless, with their call signs, and airport of origin omitted. Such planes are usually occupied by celebrities who pay for privacy.
Also during the year, airlines in Canada added new seats for the winter season to Montego Bay; American Airlines launched its inaugural non-stop flight from Miami to Ian Fleming International Airport in Boscobel, St Mary, in February, marking the commencement of regular service to Jamaica’s third international airport; and in June, United Airlines announced a 50 per cent increase in flights to Jamaica, relative to its pre-pandemic schedules.
Additionally, Avelo Airlines began its inaugural international flight on November 16, with direct flights connecting Hartford, Connecticut, and Montego Bay; and LATAM Airlines, the largest airline in Latin America, resumed non-stop flights between Lima, Peru, and Montego Bay on December 1, operating three times weekly with connections to several South American countries.
Within the Caribbean region, Intra-Caribbean Airways’ connectivity increased with its route from Kingston to Barbados; Bahamas Air introduced a new non-stop route between Nassau and Montego Bay; and LIAT commenced non-stop flights between Kingston and Antigua.
In November, Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett announced that World2Fly will start rotations from Lisbon, Portugal to Montego Bay in Summer 2025, enhancing visitor arrivals from Europe by some 7,000 passengers from June to September 2025.