Jamaica’s winter airline seats rise 23.5%, with visitor recovery still incomplete

Jamaica has secured 1.32 million airline seats for the January-April 2027 winter tourist season, up 23.5% from the corresponding 2026 period, according to Jamaica Tourist Board figures reported by the Gleaner.

The allocation adds about 252,000 seats as accommodation providers rebuild after Hurricane Melissa. Airlines have committed seats for the season.

Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett said the commitments substantially reduce the risk of insufficient airlift. The next task, he said, is converting the capacity into bookings, visitor expenditure and economic opportunities for Jamaicans.

Canada is leading the expansion, with allocated seats rising 62.1% year over year. The United States follows at 23.1% and Latin America at 2.0%. Capacity from Canada and Latin America now exceeds pre-storm 2025 levels, the board said. Overall winter capacity, however, stands at 92.4% of the 2025 total.

The rise follows a heavily disrupted winter. Category 5 Melissa damaged Jamaica’s main tourism corridor in late October 2025. Stopover arrivals fell 68% year over year in November, with the decline narrowing to 34% in December as hotels reopened.

Airport passenger figures show an incomplete recovery. Sangster International Airport in Montego Bay handled 238,300 passengers in September 2026, a 17% year-over-year decline. That monthly fall was smaller than the 25.5% decline over January-September, when traffic totalled 2.87 million.

The figures come from Grupo Aeroportuario del Pacífico, which operates Jamaica’s international airports. At Kingston’s Norman Manley International Airport, September passenger traffic fell 3.8% to 132,400. January-September traffic declined 1.8% to 1.39 million.

Analysts cited by the Gleaner attribute Kingston’s weaker performance primarily to reduced local travel and softer business-event activity. Airport passenger totals cover a different population from stopover arrivals, which count visitors staying in the country.

Approximately 3,500 hotel rooms are expected to remain unavailable in the coming winter, leaving about 90% of Jamaica’s room stock operational. The JTB said planned airlift is broadly aligned with available accommodation, and its outlook has improved steadily over the past two months as airlines made additional commitments.

Tourism director Donovan White said the board is working with airline partners, tour operators and accommodation providers to translate the seats into bookings. As properties reopen, it intends to continue aligning airlift with room availability.