(Barbados Nation) Over 3 000 passengers should be arriving in Barbados out of Canada over the next four months on a new chartered flight.
Beginning today, Air Transat will be offering direct services to Barbados every Sunday until April 2012. And according to Minister of Tourism, Richard Sealy, the bookings have been “very strong with 80 per cent load factors (so far)”. This, he said, was very exciting.
The 189-seater 737 aircraft touched down in Barbados to a Yuletide welcome today with 184 passengers on board.
In welcoming the Captain and his crew to the island, president of the Barbados Hotel and Tourism Association (BHTA), Colin Jordan said the Canadian market was one of the most important markets for the Barbados tourism product.
“Canada is one of the markets that started the modern tourism industry in this country,” he said. “And we are always very happy when we have new links, new products coming out of Canada. We hope that this Air Transat Charter programme which will extend across the entire winter period, will be a beneficial one for us and we hope that we can continue …. This relationship past this winter and we are looking forward to (it going into) the following winter; we hope it will be that successful that we will have another progreamme next year,” said Jordan.