Flights Resume In Jamaica After Hurricane Melissa, Dec 2025

Jamaica flights resume after Hurricane Melissa as airlines restart mid December service, led by Air Transat departures beginning December 12, 2025. This matters most for travelers with December packages and week of travel bookings who have been waiting for clearer "go or no go" signals from airlines, ports, and suppliers. Even with improving access, plans still need a tighter verification loop than normal, because a destination can be open in general while a specific resort, road segment, marina, or excursion operator is still running limited service.

The Jamaica flights resume after Hurricane Melissa story has shifted from widespread shutdowns to phased restarts, with travelers now needing to separate islandwide operating status from neighborhood level constraints.

Air Transat's Jamaica restart is one of the cleanest mid December milestones because it comes with a published resumption date and first departure cities. The carrier says it will resume operations to Jamaica starting December 12, 2025, with initial departures from Toronto Pearson International Airport (YYZ), Montréal Trudeau International Airport (YUL), and later Halifax Stanfield International Airport (YHZ). For Canadian leisure travelers, that is a practical indicator that supplier confidence is rising, not just marketing language.

There is also a second, less obvious improvement embedded in the Air Transat picture. On December 10, 2025, Reuters reported that Air Transat and the pilots' union reached a tentative agreement, reducing near term strike risk that could have compounded storm recovery disruptions. Travelers should still watch for ratification timing, but the immediate threat of a last minute airline wide work stoppage has eased.

On the destination side, Jamaica's tourism site says that following the passage of Hurricane Melissa, all international and domestic airports are operational. That statement is broad by design, and it is useful as a baseline for trip viability, but it does not guarantee that every airport area is operating at pre storm capacity, or that every airline is back to its normal schedule.

For cruise travelers, the most concrete recent datapoint is that ships have returned to Jamaica's major ports. Seatrade Cruise News reported that all four of Jamaica's major cruise ports received ships on December 8, 2025, including Port Royal Kingston handling a homeporting vessel again, alongside calls at Ocho Rios, Montego Bay, and Falmouth. That is an operational signal that port approaches, berths, and core passenger flows are functioning well enough for cruise lines to return.

What "open" looks like for air travelers depends on where you are going, and how you are getting there. For most visitors, the key aviation gateway is Sangster International Airport (MBJ) in Montego Bay, because it anchors the north coast resort band. Kingston's Norman Manley International Airport (KIN) is more relevant for business travel, family visits, and travelers connecting to the southeast side of the island. Ian Fleming International Airport (OCJ) in Ocho Rios is smaller, but it can matter for select routings and recovery operations, and U.S. Embassy messaging during the immediate aftermath highlighted KIN and OCJ reopening for commercial operations as early as October 30, 2025. The takeaway for mid December is that airport capability exists, but the question becomes which airlines are operating reliably on your specific day.

What is still most likely to be constrained is not the ability to land on the island, but the reliability of the end to end trip once you arrive. In storm recoveries, the failure points tend to be ground transfers, utility stability at individual properties, and the gap between a resort reopening and a full excursion menu coming back online. That is why a practical verification checklist beats vague optimism.

Before departure, confirm five items directly with your providers, and treat any uncertainty as a reason to add buffer. First, recheck your flight number and the operating carrier inside the airline app, not just on a tour operator invoice, because schedule swaps can happen late in recovery periods. Second, ask your hotel for a dated statement of what is operating on site, specifically room inventory, restaurants, pools, elevators, and beach access, because "open" can still mean partial amenities. Third, lock down your ground transfer plan with a named pickup point, a contact number that works on arrival, and a fallback plan if the driver is delayed. Fourth, verify each excursion with the operator, and ask what happens if they cancel for operational reasons, because "returning in phases" often means certain days and departure points are back first. Fifth, confirm your travel protection posture, including whether your card benefits or travel insurance treats supplier initiated schedule changes differently than voluntary changes.

If you are traveling on Air Transat specifically, do not guess at what the carrier will do in an irregular operation. Air Transat's own advisory language for the restart period lays out automatic handling for certain affected bookings, including cancellations and refunds for some Canada departures during the suspension window, and automatic rebooking for some departures from Jamaica. Even if your itinerary falls outside that exact window, it is a strong cue to monitor the airline's alert page and your booking status closely during the restart week.

Background helps explain why these reopenings can feel uneven. Airlines typically restart service in steps: first relief and recovery flights, then limited commercial flying, then broader scheduled operations once staffing, catering, fuel supply, baggage systems, and local transportation stabilize. Early in the storm period, Travel + Leisure documented widespread regional travel disruption, including grounded flights and rerouted cruises, which is the kind of shock that takes weeks to unwind across airline networks. In mid December, the system is in the "normalizing" phase, which is better, but still not the same as a fully stable peak season schedule.

For readers who want additional Jamaica specific context from our recent coverage, see our updates on cruise port resumptions and resort reopening timelines, and keep an evergreen hurricane readiness checklist bookmarked for the rest of the Caribbean season: Jamaica Cruise Ports Reopen December 2025, Hurricane Melissa Jamaica Resorts Reopen December 2025, and Hurricane Safety Tips for Travelers in the Caribbean. The operational pattern is the same across islands: when flights come back, the smartest traveler shift is from "is the island open" to "is my exact chain, flight, transfer, hotel, and tour, confirmed and runnable."

Sources

• Update, November 25, 2025: Resumption of Flights to Jamaica (Air Transat)
• Jamaica Travel Alerts, Information for Visitors (Visit Jamaica)
• Cruise Ships Back at All Four of Jamaica's Major Ports (Seatrade Cruise News, December 9, 2025)
• Canada's Air Transat, Pilots' Union Reach Tentative Deal to Avert Strike (Reuters, December 10, 2025)
• Weather Alert, U.S. Embassy Kingston, Jamaica (October 30, 2025)
• Hurricane Melissa Is Disrupting Travel Across the Caribbean (Travel + Leisure, October 28, 2025)
• U.S. Issues Travel Advisory for Jamaica as Airline Service Begins to Return (AOL, November 3, 2025)