With Caribbean, Central America Demand Up, AA Adds to Schedule

American Airlines’ service expansion from Fort Lauderdale to the Caribbean and Central America will feature daily nonstop flights to San Jose, Costa Rica, and Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, effective December 13. The carrier had suspended its service between Fort Lauderdale and Santo Domingo in 2005.

In addition, the carrier will upgrade to a 267-seat Airbus A300 on one of its three daily flights between Fort Lauderdale and San Juan on the same date. The two remaining flights will continue to be flown via 757 aircraft. Also, American’s daily roundtrip from Fort Lauderdale to Port-au-Prince, Haiti, will be upgraded to an Airbus A300 from the current 737-800 aircraft.

“We continue to see increased demand for service out of Fort Lauderdale to the Caribbean and Central America,” said Henry Joyner, senior vice president-planning.

The move by American to add the new and upgraded services is seen as a response to Spirit Airlines’ growth out of Fort Lauderdale to the region.

Spirit launched its service from Fort Lauderdale to Costa Rica and Guatemala earlier this year and will add a new flight to Honduras on July 20.

American currently serves those destinations from Miami and will continue to do so, but is adding the Fort Lauderdale service to Costa Rica in an effort to gain market share from Spirit, which was the largest carrier operating out of Fort Lauderdale in May, carrying 15.2 percent of traffic.