Southwest airlines to begin Cayman flights June 2017

[Drew Sailbum]

The Cayman Compass reports that Southwest Airlines will begin service to the Cayman Islands from June 2017. Flights will connect Cayman to Ft Lauderdale, Florida.

Further details on frequency of flights is still to come.

 

[AggieDiver]

YES!!!!! I have been waiting for this ever since they announced international flights. I just wish they would fly out of Houston Hobby, but I will take what I can get...

 

[Uber Dave]

I wish they would fly to Turks Caicos

 

[Drew Sailbum]

Only additional bit gleaned from reports is that service on Southwest is planned to be once daily to Cayman.

Airlines that have once daily flights typically schedule arrival to Cayman in early afternoon. Might make for a bigger rush at customs and immigration, and a bigger crowd in the departure lounge.

Flight time from FLL to GCM should be little more than for MIA... might even be the same since flights in and out of MIA need more time for ground manouvers. So I am guessing a 75 minutes scheduled flight time, which might put a departure from FLL around midday with arrival in Cayman roughly 1-2pm. Wonder how close my guess will be to the actual flight schedule.

 

[AggieDiver]

My biggest hope is that the flight will leave FLL late enough that I can catch a morning flight from Hobby to FLL and make the connection. My second biggest hope is that the flight will arrive at GCM early enough to have more than one option on flights from GCM to LCY. In the recent past, if we wanted to go to LCY from Houston in September, the direct United flights were only going Wednesday and Saturday and just barely got there in time to make the last flight to LCY. later in the fall and winter, you can't make a connection to LCY from the IAH-GCM United flight because the Cayman Air schedule changes. The last flight to LCY on Saturday was always the first to sell out, so it would be nice to have the option of the SW daily flight to pick a day other than Saturday to travel.

 

[JamesBon92007]

The Cayman Compass reports that Southwest Airlines will begin service to the Cayman Islands from June 2017. Flights will connect Cayman to Ft Lauderdale, Florida.

Further details on frequency of flights is still to come.

Sounds great as long as I don't have to change planes in Denver.

How's the Zika virus doing there?

 

[flyboy08]

Why fly SE when JetBlue is available. SW is such a cattle cart low cost service provider!

 

[JamesBon92007]

Why fly SE when JetBlue is available. SW is such a cattle cart low cost service provider!

I've never flown JetBlue but I had a companion pass with SW last year plus my GF still has about 1/2 million airline points with them

I agree that if you are in the last boarding group it can be hard to find room for your luggage in the overhead and all that's left is middle seats and they cram so many seats on the planes that you can't roll a carry-on down the isle and they don't even offer food on long flights and sometimes the pilots get lost, but other than that.....

 

[drrich2]

Why fly SE when JetBlue is available. SW is such a cattle cart low cost service provider!

Bold emphasis reveals the answer. Will the international SW flights also have free checked baggage? I love me some free checked baggage...

Richard.

 

[JamesBon92007]

Bold emphasis reveals the answer. Will the international SW flights also have free checked baggage? I love me some free checked baggage...

Richard.

They do to Mexico and Costa Rica (two free checked bags) so I would suspect the same to the Caymans

Having said that, last month they lost my girlfriends' checked bags. We got stuck in Denver due to a storm. They sent the luggage to Ontario. We finally got to Ontario and they had sent her luggage back to Denver. We finally got it about five days after our original flight was scheduled. Also, I was on Cozumel last month (same trip) and there was an entire dive club who's luggage did not make it there. I don't know if it was SW or not, but it was all of their dive gear.