Caribbean Air Connectivity Index 2027

Key findings

• Of the 617,151 weekly seats leaving the 28 islands in the index, 24.8% stay within the Caribbean, while 47.1% go to the United States.
• The overall and regional rankings diverge: the Dominican Republic (Punta Cana and Santo Domingo) ranks 1st overall (96.0) but 4th regionally (72.2), while St Maarten / St Martin (Princess Juliana and Grand Case) ranks 1st regionally (98.9) and is tied for 3rd overall with Bahamas (Nassau) (70.6).
• The share of extra-regional arrival seats with a same-day onward connection to another island ranges from 100.0% in St Maarten / St Martin (Princess Juliana and Grand Case), Curaçao and Antigua to 22.7% in Jamaica (Montego Bay and Kingston).
• Long-haul flights of at least 4,000 km carry 81.7% of extra-regional arrival seats in Guadeloupe (Pointe-à-Pitre) and 70.1% in Martinique, against 3.3% in Puerto Rico (San Juan).
• Carrier concentration varies widely: one airline holds 77.3% of seats in St Croix (HHI 6,495) and 73.4% in Trinidad (HHI 5,477), against 17.8% in the Dominican Republic (Punta Cana and Santo Domingo) (HHI 880).

About this index

The Caribbean Air Connectivity Index measures how well 28 Caribbean islands are connected by scheduled air service. It looks at how many flights and seats leave each island, how many destinations they reach, how concentrated that service is among airlines, and how easily travelers arriving from outside the region can continue to another island on the same day.

This edition covers the low week 19 October 2026; peak week not yet collected. The reference week is an early shoulder week, not the bottom of the season. Schedules were collected on 13 October 2026 (UTC) from AeroDataBox, airport by airport, including arrivals at the gateway airports. Seats are estimated from aircraft type, not booked or flown. Historical load factors come from Eurostat (2024) and BTS T-100 (2025) and are reported separately from the schedule week. Airport reference data come from OurAirports. Roles, scores and definitions follow method v0.2, described in full on the methodology page. The data are published under CC BY-NC 4.0.

Regional overview

In the reference week, the 28 islands and 32 airports in the index schedule 5,918 departures with 617,151 estimated seats, on 762 routes operated by 68 airlines. Most of that capacity leaves the region: 75.2% of seats go to destinations outside the Caribbean, and 24.8% stay within it.

Capacity is concentrated in a few large markets. The Dominican Republic (Punta Cana and Santo Domingo) has the highest seat total, 148,144, and Puerto Rico (San Juan) the highest departure total, 941.

The index assigns each island one of four roles by rule. A gateway sends at least 9,500 weekly seats to destinations outside the Caribbean. A regional connector serves at least 7 Caribbean islands, with at least 1,500 weekly Caribbean seats and no single partner taking 50.0% or more of its Caribbean departures. A shuttle serves exactly 1 destination island. Every other island is a spoke.

This edition counts 12 gateways, from Grand Cayman (14,145 weekly seats) to the Dominican Republic (Punta Cana and Santo Domingo) (148,144); 7 regional connectors, from Dominica (3,074) to Providenciales (13,579); 7 spokes, from Nevis (355) to Bonaire (7,084); and 2 shuttles, St Eustatius and Saba, with 418 seats each.

Roles describe how an island is connected, not how large it is. Bonaire, a spoke, schedules 7,084 weekly seats, more than three regional connectors: St Kitts (4,225), Tortola (3,960) and Dominica (3,074). Two islands sit close to the gateway threshold: Grand Cayman qualifies with 9,700 extra-regional seats, and Providenciales falls short with 8,630.

The Caribbean figures include 20,627 seats on 78 departures that are inter-island legs of flights that also fly to or from outside the region. The index flags these legs but does not remove them.

Rankings

The connectivity score combines five measures: weekly seats, destinations, Caribbean destinations, links to global connecting hubs and weekly departures. Each measure is scaled to the island that leads on it, so the top-ranked island can score below the maximum. The score is relative to this set of islands, not a percentage.

The Dominican Republic (Punta Cana and Santo Domingo) ranks first with 96.0, followed by Puerto Rico (San Juan) with 81.6. Bahamas (Nassau) and St Maarten / St Martin (Princess Juliana and Grand Case) are tied for 3rd at 70.6. Islands with the same displayed score share a rank and the next rank is skipped, so Jamaica (Montego Bay and Kingston) follows in 5th place with 63.8. At the other end, St Eustatius and Saba are tied for 27th at 14.2. Each is a shuttle market with a single destination island, and their position reflects that role, not a shortfall against larger islands.

The regional score measures connectivity within the Caribbean only. It combines three measures: the number of Caribbean destination islands, weekly departures to them and weekly seats to them. Each is scaled to the island that leads on it, so the top-ranked island can score below the maximum.

St Maarten / St Martin (Princess Juliana and Grand Case) ranks first with 98.9, ahead of Bahamas (Nassau) at 83.4 and Puerto Rico (San Juan) at 80.2. The two rankings diverge most for islands whose capacity points mainly in one direction. St Barths, where 100.0% of seats go to Caribbean destinations, is 23rd overall but 9th regionally. Jamaica (Montego Bay and Kingston), where 9.8% of seats go to Caribbean destinations, is 5th overall and 15th regionally. Aruba is 9th overall and 20th regionally, and Grand Cayman 13th and 22nd. Some Caribbean seats are inter-island legs of flights that also fly to or from outside the region: Barbados has 2,620 such seats, Bahamas (Nassau) 2,310 and Aruba 2,300. These legs are flagged in the data but not removed.

Gateways

This section covers the 12 islands with the gateway role, plus Antigua, which the editor added for comparison although its role is regional connector. An extra-regional arrival is a scheduled flight from outside the Caribbean. A long-haul arrival is one that travels at least 4,000 km. A same-day option is an onward departure to another island in the index, leaving at least 90 minutes after the arrival and before 23:59 on the same local day.

Volume. The Dominican Republic (Punta Cana and Santo Domingo), with 753 arrivals, and Puerto Rico (San Juan), with 601, receive the most extra-regional flights by a wide margin.

Long-haul. Long-haul arrivals form the largest share of extra-regional seats in Guadeloupe (Pointe-à-Pitre) at 81.7% and Martinique at 70.1%, followed by Barbados at 47.2%. In Puerto Rico (San Juan) the share is 3.3%, and Grand Cayman has none. The 4,000 km threshold is not a proxy for Europe: in Trinidad, 55.7% of long-haul seats come from Canada.

Breadth and coverage. Breadth is how many islands a traveler can reach the same day. The Dominican Republic (Punta Cana and Santo Domingo) reaches 14 islands, St Maarten / St Martin (Princess Juliana and Grand Case) 13, Barbados 11 and Antigua 10, while Aruba and Grand Cayman each reach 2. Coverage is the share of arriving seats with at least one option: 100.0% in St Maarten / St Martin (Princess Juliana and Grand Case), Curaçao and Antigua and 97.7% in Aruba, but 22.7% in Jamaica (Montego Bay and Kingston). Median waits range from 1.7 h in St Maarten / St Martin (Princess Juliana and Grand Case) to 6.0 h in Grand Cayman.

Caveats. For islands with two airports, the median is taken at the airport with the most connecting arrivals: Punta Cana for the Dominican Republic (Santo Domingo's median is 2.3 h), Kingston for Jamaica and Princess Juliana for St Maarten / St Martin. Arrivals filed under a city code (London, Paris, Washington) use the distance to that city's main airport. Onward options include inter-island legs of flights continuing to or from outside the region.

Island hopping and intra-Caribbean connectivity

Flights between Caribbean islands account for 152,770 weekly seats, 24.8% of the total. They form a dense network of short, frequent routes, many flown with small aircraft: St Barths schedules 269 weekly departures but only 2,992 seats.

The busiest inter-island routes by departures are St Maarten / St Martin (Princess Juliana and Grand Case) to St Barths (192 departures, 2,248 seats) and Trinidad to Tobago (TAB) (115 departures, 8,500 seats). They are followed by Bonaire to Curaçao (91 departures; of its 3,562 seats, 1,510 are on legs of flights continuing to Amsterdam (AMS)), Aruba to Curaçao (76 departures) and Martinique to Guadeloupe (Pointe-à-Pitre) (61 departures, 5,470 seats).

Breadth varies widely. St Maarten / St Martin (Princess Juliana and Grand Case) serves 22 Caribbean islands, Bahamas (Nassau) 21 and the Dominican Republic (Punta Cana and Santo Domingo) 19. Nassau's count includes other Bahamian islands outside the index, such as Freeport (FPO) and Marsh Harbour (MHH).

Some islands spread their regional traffic widely: Antigua serves 13 Caribbean islands and sends no more than 17.0% of its Caribbean departures to any one of them. Others depend on a single partner: Bonaire sends 96.8% of its Caribbean departures to Curaçao, Martinique 87.1% to Guadeloupe (Pointe-à-Pitre) and St Barths 71.7% to St Maarten / St Martin (Princess Juliana and Grand Case). St Eustatius and Saba are shuttle markets, each with 22 weekly departures and 418 seats, all to St Maarten / St Martin (Princess Juliana and Grand Case) and all on Winair (WM).

Among the carriers with the most weekly departures, Caribbean Airlines (BW) holds the largest share of inter-island seats (17.3%), followed by interCaribbean (JY) at 12.0%, Air Caraïbes (TX) at 9.0%, JetBlue (B6) at 7.7% and Winair at 6.9%. Cape Air (9K) operates 502 weekly departures with 4,518 seats, a 3.0% share.

Inter-island figures include 20,627 seats on 78 departures that are legs of flights also flying to or from outside the region. The index flags these legs but does not remove them.

Source markets

The United States is the largest destination market, with 290,742 weekly seats (47.1%). It is followed by flights within the Caribbean (24.8%), Latin America (13.5%), Europe (10.0%) and Canada (4.6%). "Other" covers destinations outside these regions; in this edition it is a single route, Barbados to Lagos (Murtala Muhammed International Airport, LOS), with 330 seats.

Island mixes differ sharply. Puerto Rico (San Juan) sends 81.8% of its seats to the United States, St Thomas 78.0% and St Croix 77.3%. Europe is the largest market in Guadeloupe (Pointe-à-Pitre) at 48.4%, Martinique at 44.8% and Curaçao at 31.6%. Latin America takes 35.9% of seats in the Dominican Republic (Punta Cana and Santo Domingo) and 25.1% in Curaçao. Jamaica (Montego Bay and Kingston) has the largest Canadian share, 10.9%. St Barths, Nevis, St Eustatius and Saba send 100.0% of their seats to other Caribbean islands.

Through flights affect some mixes. In Aruba, Europe accounts for 290 seats (0.8%): flights that arrive from Amsterdam (AMS) continue to Bonaire, and those 2,010 seats are counted as Caribbean.

Dependence and resilience

The Herfindahl-Hirschman index (HHI) measures how concentrated an island's seats are among airlines, on a scale from 0 to 10,000; higher means more concentrated. Outside the two shuttle markets, where 10,000 follows from having one carrier, concentration is highest in St Croix (6,495), where American Airlines holds 77.3% of seats and no destination is served by two airlines, and in Trinidad (5,477), where Caribbean Airlines holds 73.4%. It is lowest in the Dominican Republic (Punta Cana and Santo Domingo) (880), Curaçao (881) and St Maarten / St Martin (Princess Juliana and Grand Case) (1,003).

Redundancy, the share of destinations that would still be served if one airline withdrew, is highest in St Vincent (55.6%) and lowest in St Thomas (5.6%). Bonaire (96.8%), Aruba (87.4%) and Martinique (87.1%) send most of their Caribbean departures to a single island, while Barbados (13.6%) and Puerto Rico (San Juan) (16.7%) are the least dependent on one partner.

In six islands, a small share of seats (0.3% to 3.3%) is sold under a code whose operating carrier is not identified. It is counted as one airline.

Seasonality

This edition covers a single reference week: the low week 19 October 2026; peak week not yet collected. Seasonal comparisons will be added once the peak week has been collected.

Load factors

Load factors, passengers carried as a share of seats offered, come from historical monthly statistics, not from the reference week: BTS T-100 for 2025, covering flights that touch a United States airport, and Eurostat for 2024, covering flights reported by EU airports. Only full-year figures are shown in the table below.

On United States routes, full-year loads range from 87.4% on departing domestic flights from Puerto Rico (San Juan) and 87.2% in Aruba to 68.0% on departing flights from St Vincent. Where full-year data exist, routes to other Caribbean islands carried lower loads: 46.9% on departing flights from Nevis, 45.4% from St Thomas and 55.3% from Tortola. In Eurostat data, departing flights from Guadeloupe (Pointe-à-Pitre) to Europe were 90.8% full and from Martinique 88.2%.

Eurostat's arriving figures cover only flights from EU airports, and its departing figures cover only the EU-reporting airports in Guadeloupe, Martinique and, on St Maarten / St Martin, Grand Case. The two directions are therefore not comparable. Several island figures cover fewer than 12 months and are not reported here, and the Puerto Rico (San Juan) figure for Africa relates to flights with no scheduled service in the reference week.

Limitations

• Routes, seats and destinations are measured from departures. Arrivals were collected at the gateway airports only, for the gateway analysis.
• Cargo, private and codeshare duplicate flights are excluded, as are flights between two airports on the same island.
• Destinations are counted per island, and some index islands cover only part of their country; each profile states which airports are included.
• Seats are estimated from aircraft type, not booked or flown, for 100.0% of departures in most islands and 98.4% in Antigua.
• Schedules were collected on 13 October 2026 (UTC) for a single early shoulder week. Later schedule changes are not reflected, and no peak week has been collected.
• Inter-island figures include 20,627 seats on 78 departures that are legs of flights also flying to or from outside the region. These legs are flagged, not removed.
• For 8 route pairs, the two directions differ materially. These are flagged for checking and not treated as findings.
• In six islands, 0.3% to 3.3% of seats are sold under a code whose operating carrier is not identified; that code is counted as one airline.
• Roles are assigned by fixed thresholds, and some islands sit near them: Grand Cayman qualifies as a gateway with 9,700 extra-regional seats against a threshold of 9,500.
• Load factors describe 2024 and 2025, not the reference week.

What to watch

• The peak week. This edition measures a single early shoulder week: the low week 19 October 2026; peak week not yet collected. Some winter seasonal services begin in October and others in November and December, so the peak-week collection will show how much capacity each of the 28 islands adds between seasons.
• Islands near a role threshold. Grand Cayman qualifies as a gateway with 9,700 extra-regional seats against the 9,500 threshold, while Providenciales is a regional connector with 8,630, below it. St Vincent serves 6 Caribbean islands, one short of the 7 a regional connector needs, and St Lucia's largest partner takes 45.1% of its Caribbean departures, against the 50.0% limit. Small schedule changes could move these islands across a role boundary.
• Through flights. Inter-island figures include 20,627 seats on 78 departures that are legs of flights also flying to or from outside the region, among them 2,620 seats at Barbados, 2,310 at Bahamas (Nassau) and 2,300 at Aruba. The next version of the method plans to count these legs separately, which will change those islands' Caribbean seat figures.
• Route pairs that differ by direction. Eight route pairs show materially different frequencies or seats in the two directions. Through flights account for most of them; two pairs, Puerto Rico (San Juan)–St Thomas and Dominican Republic (Punta Cana and Santo Domingo)–Aruba, are not explained by through flights and have not been checked against timetables.
• Single-carrier exposure. On the most concentrated islands, one airline's schedule decides most of the capacity: American Airlines (AA) holds 77.3% of seats in St Croix, Caribbean Airlines (BW) 73.4% in Trinidad and interCaribbean (JY) 53.3% in Tortola, and Winair (WM) flies 100.0% of seats in Saba and St Eustatius.
• Load factor coverage. International T-100 data are published about six months in arrears, and several island series currently cover only part of 2025; later releases will complete them.