New Flights to the Caribbean This Winter, an Island-by-Island Guide

When planning a Caribbean vacation, you might begin by sifting through the latest list of top beaches or hot new hotels. But where you ultimately decide to go often comes down to one thing: how convenient is the flight?

This is not a secret to the airlines, which also realize that the more direct the route, the more likely they are to get passengers’ dollars.

Airlines continue to add routes to the islands from key U. S. cities. The number of nonstop flights between the United States and the Caribbean jumped 18 percent to 135,162 in 2018 from 114,150 five years ago, according to OAG Analytics, a global travel data company.

American Airlines alone has added nine new flights to the Caribbean and Bahamas this season, including new year-round service between Miami and St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Dallas-Fort Worth and Aruba, as well as from New York’s La Guardia Airport to Nassau in the Bahamas. Other new seasonal nonstop flights will run from Chicago to Aruba, Grand Cayman, Nassau and the Turks and Caicos. The airline is also increasing service from its Miami hub to the Caribbean with additional daily flights to Barbados, Curaçao, St. Lucia, Trinidad and Tobago, and both Santo Domingo and Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic.