AirTran Airways plans flights to Jamaica, Bahamas and Aruba from Atlanta, Baltimore, Orlando

AirTran Airways has applied to the United States Department of Transportation (DOT) seeking to launch flights to Jamaica, Bahamas and Aruba in the Caribbean. In a statement, AirTran Airways, the budget airline based in Orlando, Florida, the United States, said it filed the applications as a part of its efforts to expand its international network.

If the US Department of Transportation approves the request, AirTran Airways said it would start services to Bahamas, Jamaica and Aruba later in 2009 and in early in 2010 “from a combination of key cities” in the United States.

AirTran Airways has proposed, in the application, year-round flights to Nassau (Bahamas) and Montego Bay (Jamaica) from Atlanta, Baltimore and Orlando (the United States).

The planned service to the island of Aruba is scheduled to start from Orlando and Atlanta.

More details on flights, fares and the type of aircraft to be used on the proposed routes would be made available once AirTran Airways receives the approval of the US Department of Transportation.

AirTran Airways, a subsidiary of AirTran Holdings Incorporated, had launched flights to Cancun in Mexico in February 2009.

In the statement, the airline said that it had taken steps to cut debt as well as costs related to fuel at a time when the global economic recession is adversely affecting
demand for air travel.

The lowering of costs, according to AirTran Airways, has helped it to earn profits for both the first quarter and the second quarter of 2009, compared to the losses it had suffered in the same quarters a year before.

The media quoted Kevin Healy, AirTran Airways’ vice-president for marketing and planning, as saying that the airline had studied the potential for services to the Caribbean as early as in 2007 – at a time when its only international service was to Freeport in the Bahamas.

Since 2007, AirTran Airways added San Juan and Cancun to its international network.

It is interesting to note that AirTran Airways’ application to the US Department of Transportation was filed on the same day that JetBlue Airways, the low-fare airline based in New York, the United States, announced that it would ask for approval from the government of Jamaica to start flights between Orlando and Montego Bay.

At present, only Air Jamaica, the flag-carrier airline of Jamaica, flies on the Orlando-Montego Bay route – and this is a daily service.

Aviation analysts are of the opinion that AirTran Airways is bound to encounter stiff competition from Air Jamaica on the Baltimore-Montego Bay route, too.

Apart from this, the analysts say, AirTran Airways will have to compete with JetBlue Airways, another low-cost airline, on the Orlando-Nassau route, and also with Delta Ai Lines on the Atlanta-Montego Bay and Aruba-Nassau routes.

Currently, there are no scheduled flights between Orlando and Aruba or between Baltimore and Nassau.