New VS service to St Vincent

[mitchja]

VS have just announced they will start flying to St Vincent from June 2021.

More details can be found here

Interesting choice, whilst the Caribbean may be somewhat of a Covid haven in terms of destinations that can operate I'm not sure how many peope have a burning desire to go to St. Vincent. Having said that with no direct UK flights before now I imagine there is an element of chicken and egg here.

More broadly though with the number of recent new route announcements it will be interesting to see how many stick around in a post-Covid world, where demand is on the up and there is more of a decision on where VS want to send their aircraft e.g. weighing up extra New York frequencies vs. Islamabad or St Vincent.

Is this not a case of how many Caribbean alternatives to St Lucia can we offer?

I don't think so. I can't lie and say I have the data but the size and population of St. Vincent would suggest that they would have less tourist capacity and less local (visiting friends and family) traffic than St. Lucia. That said having stepped away from St Lucia on cost grounds I imagine St Vincent came with an attractive subsidy of some sort from the local airport/grovernment. Plus its not served by BA or any other UK airline. In any case it will be routed via Barbados or Antigua so comparatively less risk than servicing truly direct.