American A flight changes

There goes what little tourism we have.

Fewer flights and higher fares (compared to STT) could be an opportunity for another airline to fill the void. AA is my least favorite of the majors but really the only choice from Houston. So there may be a silver lining. It's also not unusual for smaller communities to subsidize airlines to promote commerce and tourism. I wouldn't mind some of my tax dollars used for that purpose.

I heard rumor that Jet Blue might be adding STX to their flights - any truth to that rumor?

Jetblue has already announced that they are also concerned about finances, and are postponing outstanding orders for new 21 planes. Not likely that they will at the same time look for a new route, though those rumors have been around for a long time..though most recently I had heard it was going to be STT instead. And, for those new to stx, we've ALWAYS had fewer and more expensive air flights than STT, at least for the last 10 years. This administration has been doing alot more to try to get some increased airlift, but this fuel situation is getting in the way, I'm sure.

This is a good chance for Cape Air to increase flights or for a new airline to start service from STX/STT-SJU. The Miami flight should stay because AA is looking to strengthen their Caribbean flights out of their MIA hub. A lot of islands with reduced SJU service had just recently, or are going to receive, MIA service - so I would expect the STX-MIA to remain for the time being. Also, with less connecting SJU-STX flights, the MIA-STX is guaranteed to have more passengers. I heard it was operating at a 50% average passenger load before the cuts.

Also, with less flights from SJU to the states, there is less need for SJU-STX/STT connecting flights, as most of the passengers don't disembark in San Juan and are continuing to the states.

I just heard last night the Cape Air and Jet Blue have come together with packages from SJU. I don't know if that is true but that would help out I'm sure. To bad I am leaving Island on Thurs.

anyone take a look at all the changes American is making starting in Sept. on the mainland flights to SJU and the Eagles? Most changes loaded today. It's not a pretty sight. Appears it's going from 8 flights a day down to 3 on the stx-sju route. I'm really amazed that we kept the Miami-stx jet, so far at least.

Effective Wednesday September 3rd, AA MIA-STX jet will not fly on Wednesdays and Mondays, reschedule for 7 day schedule not listed by AA. So if your traveling, forget direct jets on Mondays and Wednesdays!!!!

Every time I've flown on AA between here and sju or mia the planes have been FULL, or very nearly so. I'm now looking at plans to go off island a couple of times in the next few months, and AA Eagle flights are already heavily booked. The demand clearly exists and there's no one else to fill it for now. For those of us who are divers and have to take dive gear with us when we travel, Cape Air just isn't big enough. I guess we're just going to be stranded here; 'Cause, unlike people in small-town America, we can't just drive long distances to the nearest big airport; our cars would get too wet in the process.

All of the airlines are making drastic cutbacks due to fuel increases and the recession. Trust me, tourism is going to see a huge decline very soon. Families simply cannot afford to fly. Moreover, now that many airlines are discontinuing nonstops from the East coast and elsewhere to STT, I for one will not deal with the huge price increases and layovers. The wealthy will continue to vacation in the carribean for sure, but that is about it. These islands will now be experiencing what we in the States have been experiencing for the past two years- 40% real estate price decreases and 20% food cost increases - I suspect same will only be magnified in STT and the surrounding islands. Couple that with the 40 % WAPA energy increases and people better batten down the hatches. The primary culprit is fuel pricing. Unfortunately there is no quick fix or decline in sight in the near future, if at all. What is the answer? Certainly don't buy any real estate in STT/STX/SJ for the next 2-3 years, as prices are only going down, quite rapidly in the past 6 months, and this is only the tip of the iceberg.

It will be interesting to see how the cruise lines deal with this. There are quite a few cruises that leave from SJU. With no connections and/or cheap flights it is going to be tough to passengers to the boat. When I was in SJU in March there were three large cruise ships in dock scheduled to depart on Sunday.

If they can't get passengers to boat in SJU then they may have to redeploy the boats to another port, If the cruises all leave from Miami there probably will be fewer passengers coming to this part of the Caribbean as cruise lines are conserving fuel by staying as close to their home port as possible.

Jim

I just checked AA fares from STX to Las Vegas for Dec. $1584 per person, PLUS taxes and fees! I'll be staying home!

Juanita - that's travelling first class, right? 😉

I got a fare of $1,280 for a flight to Chicago in December and that is coach. It was taking the best connections so my flight times were under eight hours each way. With the reduced Eagle flights one flight with connections both in SJU and Miami took twenty two hours!

Jim

This is so disturbing. We used to fly from STX to Miami and then Miami to Virginia. The flight took less than 8 hours. Now it is a 22 or more hour flight and double the cost. Air Tran has an inexpensive flight out of San Juan to Atlanta and then Virginia or New York but the ticket to San Juan have gone up so much that it doesn't make any difference. Delta is still flying on Wednesdays and depending where you are going to, you can find a ticket for under 8 hundred as of 2 weeks ago. US Air stops their STX flights during the off season.

I have to go back to the states several times a year for business and the costs are becoming crazy. Maybe we can all post when we find good flights. It would be great if we could find a charter if there were a group of us needing to get to the states like to Miami, Charlotte or Atlanta. It would be easier to find a flight out of those cities. I have no clue how much a charter is though.

Anybody got any ideas?

Tammy

Deltta is currently only flying to and from STX on Saturday. It will be interesting to see if if they resume the Wednesday flight during the season or follow the lead of American and Delta and eliminate their flight.

Jim

Hope that isn't the case with Delta. Daughter n law is flying in today on Delta and back out next Wednesday. Well maybe we will just keep her here.

No Delta is still Wednesday and Saturday. Their flights sell out pretty well, so I think they will stick around for a while.

Frequent flier miles may solve some of the problems. The best use for mile is for these situations where the fares are so high. I have a pile of miles on Continental but there is no valid route from Houston. I intend to use them for flights between IAH and SJU and then buy a ticket on Cape Air. It's a pain in the a** though. I have to claim luggage and recheck it.

It sounds like Tammy earns plenty of miles with her travels and I would like to hear her thoughts. For those that don't have the miles, you might want to consider a broker that deals in miles.

Finally, it would be helpful to know about super deals to STX from any origination point.

We are coming out in August from AZ. We bought our tickets in Mar at $550 each. We checked yesterday on tickets for Feb 09, and they are $700 each. We have paid as much as $750 each before.
I think the $1500 is due more to the timing of the holidays than air fares going up across the board. Not that the fares are not going up, but timing is a big issue.

In today's daily News, there is an article that the Governor has formed a task force to try to get the airlines and smaller carriers to bring more flights to the USVI.
It may not be effective, but I applaud his efforts!(tu)

I was just playing w/ Delta's reservation site and discovered that, somewhere in the middle of August, STX will lose the Wednesday flight. It was possible to schedule a flight on Aug 13 but not on Aug 20. The site said I could fly any Saturday I wanted. I guess Delta has STX mixed up with all those over-developed islands where the time-share folks check-in / check-out on Saturdays.

Delta sometimes changes their flights to Saturday-only during the off-season. I've also seen them do 3X weekly service on Wednesday, Friday and Saturdays too... I like how Delta changes their flights to fit in with the market conditions on STX instead of just cutting and running when times are hard by increasing or decreasing the amount of weekly flights. Also, if there are a lot of bookings on the ATL-STX route, they sometimes substitute a larger aircraft (a 150-passenger MD88) for the small 80-seat jet.

About the Delta/US Airways Saturday flights.... I think it has to do with travel packages that Delta, US Airways and other companies sell to the Caribbean. They are usually from Saturday-to-Saturday, hence the increase in Saturday flights to St. Croix. These flights are horrible with residents though, because you can't choose which day of the week you want to fly out, which ends up with AA (the Evil Empire) getting my money every time. But with these damn cuts, it looks like Cape Air might be making a lot more getting people to Puerto Rico.

Continental announced today that they are eliminating 11% of their flights. If they bail out of the San Juan market it will be another hard blow.

While I think Cape Air is fantastic how much of the slack can they pick up unless they switch to larger planes? At nine passengers per flight it takes a lot of additional Cape Air service to make up for one canceled Eagle flight. Also a problem with luggage space.

Jim