American Airlines’ New Ocho Rios Flights Expand Jamaica Access

One of Jamaica’s main tourist districts will begin hosting international flights in November when American Airlines launches two weekly non-stop flights between the Miami International Airport and the Ian Fleming International Airport in Ocho Rios, American representatives and Jamaica government officials said Thursday.

Learn more about Jamaica

The new flights will be non-stop between Miami and Ocho Rios on Wednesdays and Saturdays and utilize Envoy E-175 aircraft, seating 76 to 88 passengers in business and economy class categories, officials quoted in a Jamaica Observer article.

American’s new deployment follows “a recent meeting between senior executives of American Airlines and several government and private sector officials in Montego Bay,” according to the Observer report. Officials described the carrier as “the largest mover of people in and out of Jamaica.”

The meeting included Edmund Bartlett, Jamaica’s tourism minister, Adam Stewart, chairman of Sandals Resorts International (SRI) and other government, tourism and SRI officials.

Stewart is also the Jamaica Observer’s owner and operates the Sandals Ochi resort, among the company’s longest tenured properties. “This is a very valuable addition to the aviation needs of Jamaica, with non-stop service between the United States and our country’s third international airport,” Bartlett told the Observer.

Bartlett added that the new service “will encourage other airlines to fly into the Oracabessa/Ocho Rios area” and “assist greatly in boosting tourism development potential for St. Mary and Portland [parishes] and connecting members of our diaspora closer to home.”