Spirit Air Cuts Two Thirds of Its SXM Flights

Spirit Airlines, which had three flights per week to St Maarten, is discontinuing two of its three flights effective immediately. Their once-a-week flight that departs Ft. Lauderdale will be on Sunday. They are complaining about the high cost of fuel and the high landing fees at Princess Juliana Airport in St Maarten.

Spirit has had several customer service issues, and its policy of charging extra for almost everything has not been well received.

Jet Blue Flights from JFK

In mid-January, Jet Blue began flights from JFK to St Maarten beginning at just $154 one way. Reports from passengers confirm their claim to extra leg room and free, plentiful snacks. In addition, they offer seatback TVs with Direct TV programming and free wireless. In October 2007, Jet Blue was named the number one U.S. domestic airline by Conde Nast Traveler magazine's "Readers' Choice Awards" for the sixth year in a row. As of January 2008, the average fleet age of Jet Blue Airways was only 3.2 years. Their fleet consists of 104 Airbus A320-200 planes with a capacity of 150 passengers and 30 Embraer 190 planes (see photo) with a capacity of 100 passengers. The Embraer 190s are equipped with XM Satellite radio. The Airbus will also be equipped with XM Satellite radio once the current project of upgrading the seatback TV screens to a larger size is completed.

Jet Blue to Fly to St Maarten

This morning, Jet Blue started accepting reservations from JFK to SXM starting Thursday, January 17, 2008. You can make reservations through April of 2008. At this time, flight 787 leaves JFK at 9:35 am and arrives at SXM at 2:40 pm. Flight 788, the returning flight, leaves SXM at 3:35 pm and arrives at JFK at 7:05 pm.

The regular round trip airfare on Tuesdays and Wednesdays is $318, plus taxes and fees. Fares for their flights on other days are $498 round-trip Thursday, $568 round-trip Friday, and $638 round-trip Saturday.