CEO Victor Pacheco believes there is huge potential for a low-cost hub-and-spoke operator in the Caribbean—especially if governments reduce taxes and fees levied on the industry.
KLM has opened reservations this week for a planned twice weekly Amsterdam - San Jose flight launching from October 31, 2017. This will be flown on Tuesdays and Fridays and operated by one of its new Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner aircraft. It previously served San Jose until March 1998.
The airline will initially offer two weekly flights to San Jose’s Santamaria International Airport from May 4, 2016, but already plans to add a third weekly rotation during the winter 2016/2017 schedules. This will be the second long-haul link between the UK and Costa Rica adding to the weekly Thomson Airways service between London Gatwick and Liberia, which will launch in November this year.
The growth into Belize with regular flights to Philip S W Goldson International Airport in Belize City, will add a second destination in Central America, a seventh country, and the 96th city to the Southwest route map.
The proposed new route is due to launch on March 7, 2015 and Southwest Airlines has initially opened reservations for the first month of operations through to April 6, 2015. According to Southwest it anticipates strong point-to-point flows on the first-ever non-stop service on this routing but will also facilitate connections with 17 additional cities in the US via its Baltimore/Washington base.