NIA CHARLESTOWN NEVIS (December 17, 2019) — As the Nevis Island Administration (NIA), through the Nevis Air and Sea Ports Authority (NASPA), continues to provide an enabling environment to promote air travel to and from Nevis, interest in Cape Air flights which were recently reinstated at the Vance W. Amory International Airport (VWAIA) at Newcastle, continues to mount.

Ms. Katya Ruiz, Regional Marketing Director for Cape Air, told the Department of Information recently that since the airline’s announcements that flights would resume from December 12, 2019, the response has been going well.

“Right now people can book up till May, but the idea is to keep opening that booking date…I am not sure we have bookings in May of 2020 but for the next few months we have plenty of bookings already.

“So we can say the advance bookings for Nevis are looking really healthy and we have been apparently welcomed very successfully because people as soon as we announced the start of the service people started booking and we monitor our bookings really closely so if we see the need to add more seats to the destination we will try to fulfill that need,” she said.

Ms. Ruiz explained that the airline leaves San Juan at midday and arrives in Nevis at 1:20 p.m. The airline has the capacity to move several passengers and as the demand increases more seats will be allocated.

“So we have that capacity to move with how the destination is booking, and we watch our advance bookings really closely so we know what the needs are.

“We are using the same aircraft Cessna 402 (nine passengers). The flights are approximately 1 hour and 10 – 1 hour and 15 [minutes]. The lowest current fare that we have is US$159 each way but it varies given the day of the week and how booked we are. We are planning on having a locals fare once we get settled for the benefit of the locals but we will announce that at another time,” she said.

Cape Air is code sharing with JetBlue and United Airlines, giving passengers flying out of Nevis greater international access.

”The respective airlines have a flight number operated by Cape Air from San Juan to here… We also have ticket and baggage agreements with all the major carriers so you still can book and get your luggage checked all the way through to Nevis if you are flying American [Airlines] or Delta [Airlines] or some of the other major airlines,” Ms. Riuz said.

Cape Air had suspended its flights to Nevis in 2015 before reinstating them in December 2019.