Air Canada increases flights to Jamaican capital

The Toronto Sun reports that Air Canada announced it will more than double its weekly flights from Canada’s busiest airport to Kingston, Jamaica, the latest move by Canadian carriers to boost profits as the economy and demand recover.

By summer’s end the country’s biggest commercial airline plans to fly five times weekly from Toronto to the Norman Manley International Airport in Kingston as business, tourism and personal travel between the destinations is seen rising.

“Air Canada wants to ensure that there is sufficient capacity linking Canada and Jamaica to meet the demand,” Marcel Forget, vice president network planning at Air Canada, said in a statement Friday.

The announcement was coupled with a special limited-time fare. The company already flies more than a dozen times weekly to Montego Bay.

Canada’s No. 2 airline and Air Canada’s stiffest competition, WestJet, said it flew more passengers in February and that its focus on Caribbean vacations has paid off. The Calgary-based airline first announced its southern expansion last fall.

Genuity Capital Markets analyst David Tyerman said the load factor on planes — or the number of seats filled — is rebounding as the economy and in turn travel demand improves.

Airlines are adding capacity in an effort to profit from this relatively recent trend.

“There’s constant jockeying in the market,” Tyerman said, but stopped short of saying Air Canada’s latest announcement is a direct response to WestJet’s Caribbean initiatives.