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Tourism Department hits back at Opposition criticism over flight cancellations

Date Posted: Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Author: Bermuda Network News

The Department of Tourism has hit back at Opposition criticism regarding the decision of two major airlines to cancel their seasonal services to Bermuda.

Delta Airlines announced last week it would not resume flights to New York La Guardia while United Airlines cancelled its seasonal service to Chicago O’Hare.

Both airlines blamed rising fuel costs but Opposition Leader Kim Swan said that “poor projections for Bermuda tourism this year also factored into the decisions.”

“If the passenger projections had been good for these two flights – after poor performances last year – they would have been less subject to cancellation pressures. The unmentioned fact in this week’s cancellations, according to industry sources, is that Bermuda’s tourism arrival projections for this year are very poor,” he said.

”The point Bermuda must consider is not the challenge of escalating airline fuel costs, but the fact that Bermuda continues to under perform with its most important tourism customer – the leisure air visitor.”

However Airport General Manager Aaron Adderley said the recently-cancelled United Airlines flight from Chicago was never entered into the airline’s reservations system, making it impractical to analyze booking projections for the service.   

While Mr. Adderley was not in a position to divulge United’s performance results from last year but suggested that the Chicago flight performed very well in comparison to the Island’s other scheduled services.

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