Route Cuts Hit Puerto Rico And BVI Flight Links

Published on Dec 11, 2025, 5:06 pm CST

11 min read

Key points

Caribbean Airlines will end all San Juan and Tortola services after final flights on January 9 and 10 2026
The cuts remove multi stop Port of Spain routes that linked Trinidad, Dominica, Barbados, Puerto Rico and the British Virgin Islands
Caribbean Airlines is also restructuring its Barbados base in February 2026 and recentring operations on Port of Spain
Earlier cancellations of Fort Lauderdale links to Kingston and Montego Bay mean fewer one ticket options from Florida into the Caribbean
Travellers must now rebuild Puerto Rico and BVI itineraries around other regional airlines, ferries and big carrier hub links
Affected passengers are being offered refunds but third party bookings must be handled through the original seller

Impact

Puerto Rico Access: Loss of Caribbean Airlines links means travellers will lean more on US carriers into San Juan and then connect on regional operators
BVI Connectivity: Tortola remains reachable but more trips will combine San Juan or St Thomas flights with regional airlines or ferries
One Ticket Itineraries: Fewer through tickets from North America and Trinidad into San Juan and the BVI increase the need for separate bookings and longer buffers
Barbados Hub Shift: Barbados keeps service but sees more flights structured as spokes from Port of Spain which may affect connection timings
Cost And Complexity: Replacing dropped segments with regional or charter flights and ferries will often raise total trip costs and baggage fees
Refund Handling: Direct Caribbean Airlines customers should receive automatic refunds while third party bookers must chase agents or online sellers

Caribbean Airlines route cuts Puerto Rico and BVI flights from January 10 2026 mean that travellers who once stitched San Juan and Tortola into Trinidad and Barbados itineraries on one ticket now face a more fragmented map. The airline will end all services to Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport (SJU) in San Juan and Terrance B. Lettsome International Airport (EIS) in the British Virgin Islands after final sectors on January 9 and 10, then restructure its Barbados base in February. Anyone who used Caribbean Airlines to move between North America, Trinidad, Barbados, Puerto Rico, and the BVI will have to rebuild trips using other regional carriers, ferries, or new hub routings, and will need more time and backup options at each step.

In practical terms, this is a network optimisation that pulls the carrier out of thin but strategically visible routes into Puerto Rico and the BVI, recenters crews and aircraft at Piarco International Airport (POS) in Trinidad, and trims earlier experiments out of Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport (FLL), Norman Manley International Airport (KIN), and Sangster International Airport (MBJ). For travellers, it turns Caribbean Airlines from a one stop solution into one piece of a larger regional jigsaw.

What is actually being cut, and when

The headline change is simple. Caribbean Airlines confirms that all flights touching San Juan and Tortola will cease from January 10 2026, following "comprehensive evaluations of route performance and resource deployment" under its Network Optimisation Programme.

Behind that date are specific multi stop turboprop patterns. Recent schedule data shows that an ATR 72 loop linking Port of Spain with Grantley Adams International Airport (BGI) in Barbados, then Tortola, then San Juan, ends with its last northbound and southbound legs on January 10. A second ATR pattern linking Port of Spain, Dominica, and San Juan ends one day earlier, with final services operating up to January 9.

Once those flights drop out of the timetable, Caribbean Airlines will have no remaining presence in Puerto Rico or the BVI, either as destinations or as through sectors on longer Caribbean routings. The move comes only months after the airline announced that its Fort Lauderdale to Kingston and Montego Bay services would end on November 2 2025, again as part of a performance based optimisation of its North America network.

Barbados hub quietly shrinks while Trinidad recenters the network

The same announcement cycle confirms that Barbados itself is not disappearing from the map, but the way Caribbean Airlines serves it will change. Carrier briefings and regional coverage say that the airline will close or suspend its crew and aircraft base at Grantley Adams International Airport in February 2026, relocating Barbados based staff and metal back to Port of Spain and retiming flights so they operate as spokes from Trinidad.

For travellers, that has several knock on effects. Barbados remains on the route map, but the chances of tight local wave connections shrink as more itineraries become POS, then Barbados, with any delay into Trinidad more likely to break a same day Barbados link. The ATR aircraft that previously hopped through San Juan and Tortola can now be redeployed into denser intra Caribbean routes where the airline believes it can fill more seats and run a more reliable pattern.

From a network strategy point of view, the picture is that of a carrier doubling down on a single primary hub in Trinidad, with Barbados recast as a strong spoke rather than a true secondary base. That may be less glamorous on a route map, but the airline clearly believes it offers better economics and fewer operational surprises.

Why these routes, and why now

Caribbean Airlines is unusually direct that this is not about a single shock event, but about route performance and long term sustainability. In public statements, the company frames the changes as an effort to improve schedule reliability, maintain competitiveness, and keep the overall network commercially viable by pulling out of marginal sectors and concentrating capacity where demand is strongest.

San Juan and Tortola are attractive leisure and diaspora markets, and San Juan in particular is a powerful hub for United States bound connections. However, Caribbean Airlines only re entered these markets relatively recently, and faces strong competition from regional specialists such as interCaribbean Airways and Cape Air on the San Juan to Tortola corridor, as well as large US carriers feeding Puerto Rico through their mainland hubs.

The pattern fits a wider shift. Underperforming Fort Lauderdale to Kingston and Montego Bay flights were cut in late 2025. Now, multi stop ATR runs into San Juan and Tortola are being removed, and Barbados is sliding from hub toward spoke. The consistent theme is that Caribbean Airlines would rather operate fewer, denser, and more profitable routes from a focused Trinidad hub than keep thin prestige routes alive for the sake of coverage.

What this means if you usually connect via Caribbean Airlines

From January 10 2026, you will no longer be able to book a single Caribbean Airlines ticket that takes you from Trinidad, Barbados, or Dominica into San Juan or Tortola, or that links Tortola and Puerto Rico on the airline's metal. Instead, you will need to assemble combinations of US trunk flights, regional airlines, and ferries.

For North America to BVI itineraries, one common pattern used to be a US or Canadian gateway into Port of Spain, then a Caribbean Airlines tag up to Tortola. After the cuts, that tag disappears, and you will have to connect from a US carrier into a regional airline or charter, or route via St Thomas and finish by ferry.

Travellers who relied on Caribbean Airlines for shopping trips, cruise departures, or onward US flights via San Juan lose the direct multi stop option that tied Port of Spain and Barbados into that hub. The likely replacement is either a direct flight from POS or Barbados into a US hub, then down to San Juan on a different airline, or a new combination of Caribbean regional carriers if you want to keep the trip entirely within the islands.

Multi island holidays that stitched together Trinidad, Barbados, Tortola, and San Juan around the same small fleet of ATRs will become harder to keep on a single booking. You will need to treat San Juan and Tortola more as separate projects, with their own carriers, tickets, and buffers.

Alternatives for reaching San Juan and Tortola

The loss of Caribbean Airlines does not mean Puerto Rico or the BVI are suddenly hard to reach. It simply removes one player from a corridor that is already served by other airlines.

San Juan remains a major Caribbean hub, with JetBlue, American, and other US carriers operating dense schedules from mainland cities, and new routes such as JetBlue's Buffalo to San Juan flights still being launched. For many travellers, the most resilient pattern will be to reach San Juan on a large US carrier, then change onto a regional operator for Tortola or other islands.

On the San Juan to Tortola leg, carriers such as interCaribbean Airways, Cape Air, and seasonal Tradewind Aviation already provide multiple weekly, and in peak times near daily, services, and are likely to absorb some of the demand previously carried by Caribbean Airlines. Private and semi private operators offer further capacity for those with flexible budgets. Many travellers will continue to use St Thomas as a staging point, flying into Cyril E. King Airport (STT) then finishing their journey by ferry to Tortola and other BVI islands.

Within the wider Caribbean, LIAT 2020 and other regional airlines can still bridge certain gaps, especially around Antigua and the Windward Islands, but frequencies and reliability can be uneven, and schedules often change late. For trips that start in Port of Spain, it may now make more sense to fly directly to a US hub and then down to San Juan, instead of trying to preserve an all Caribbean Airlines chain.

Refunds, rebooking, and what to do if your flight disappears

Caribbean Airlines says that customers with confirmed bookings to or from Puerto Rico or the Virgin Islands on or after January 10 2026 are being contacted directly and will receive full refunds on affected sectors. As usual, the fine print depends on how you booked.

If you purchased your ticket directly from Caribbean Airlines, through its website, app, call centre, or a ticket office, the airline states that you will be refunded automatically for cancelled flights beyond the cutoff date, normally back to the original form of payment or as a credit, depending on fare rules. You should carefully read any email or SMS notifications to check how and when the refund will be processed, and whether you need to take any action.

If you booked through a travel agency or an online travel seller, Caribbean Airlines is clear that those intermediaries are responsible for processing your refund, even though the money ultimately comes from the airline. In practical terms, that means you must monitor communications from both the carrier and your agent, then chase the agent if the refund is slow to arrive.

More complex situations arise when only one leg of a through ticket is cancelled. For example, if your regional San Juan sector is withdrawn but your long haul US flight remains in place, the ticket could still be technically valid on the surviving segments. You then have to decide whether to hold onto the long haul flights and rebuild the missing link on a separate ticket, which may break through checked baggage and misconnect protections, or instead ask the ticketing carrier or your agent to reticket the entire itinerary via a different hub.

Given how brittle multi sector trips can be, the safer move for most travellers will be to engage the ticketing carrier or a competent agent and rework the entire booking coherently, rather than patching a single leg.

Checked bags and connection strategy after the cuts

Once Caribbean Airlines leaves San Juan and Tortola, one of the biggest hidden changes is how your bags move across the system.

With Caribbean Airlines off the corridor, far fewer itineraries will feature a single carrier checking baggage all the way from North America or Europe through to Tortola on one ticket. If you mix a US airline into San Juan with a separate regional ticket onward to the BVI, you will usually have to reclaim and recheck bags in Puerto Rico, then clear security again, unless you happen to be on an interline or codeshare.

If you route through St Thomas and complete the trip by ferry, airline baggage rules effectively stop at the airport, and you must be ready to carry or wheel bags across docks, customs checkpoints, and possibly wet landings.

To reduce the risk of misconnects and bag problems, travellers should build in generous time buffers at each interchange, especially in San Juan and St Thomas, and avoid planning tight cross carrier links. It is also wise to confirm regional seats before committing to long haul flights, and to consolidate to one checked bag per person if possible, since small aircraft and boats often charge higher fees for additional or heavy luggage.

How this fits the wider Caribbean Airlines strategy

Viewed alongside the Fort Lauderdale and Barbados decisions, the San Juan and Tortola cuts tell a clear strategic story.

Caribbean Airlines is withdrawing from thinner, leisure heavy sectors where it is a challenger brand, faces strong competition from regional specialists and charter operators, and must invest heavily in marketing just to keep loads at acceptable levels. It is concentrating its crews and aircraft in Trinidad, using Piarco International Airport as the main organizing hub, and radiating out to a slightly tighter but more coherent set of routes.

The carrier is also leaning into turboprop and regional flying where it can fill aircraft reliably, instead of stretching the fleet across prestige routes that may look good on a map but do not carry their weight financially. For travellers who built favourite multi island trips around those San Juan or Tortola sectors, this is undeniably inconvenient. However, if the strategy works, it should also mean fewer surprise cancellations and a more robust schedule on the routes that remain, especially for those treating Caribbean Airlines as one part of a multi carrier itinerary rather than the whole trip.

In the meantime, anyone planning 2026 Caribbean travel that touches Trinidad, Barbados, Puerto Rico, or the BVI should rebuild their plans now, secure regional seats early, and add extra buffer time into every handoff between carriers and modes. This is no longer a network where one ticket always does everything.