NEW YORK – A successful promotion on Z100, New York’s “number one hit music station”, has given Air Jamaica’s new non-stop service to St. Lucia a big boost in the marketplace. In February, Air Jamaica and Coco Resorts’ boutique hotels in the Rodney Bay area, offered free vacation packages to more than 100 lucky winners who experienced the wonders of the unspoiled Caribbean nation.
“The promotion was aimed to ensure that our Lovebird Service from JFK airport got off to a great start and it certainly did,” said Air Jamaica’s George deMercado, Miami-based senior sales and marketing executive.
Air Jamaica’s George deMercado
Allen Chastanet, managing director of Coco Resorts, says that offering hotel rooms and airline seats in the marketing pact goes a long way in promoting the destination and the non-stop service to St. Lucia. “It was clearly a sacrifice for both of us, but in today’s competitive marketplace innovation and the creative use of resources are key to developing new business,” said Chastanet, himself a former Air Jamaica executive.
Z100’s popular morning show was broadcast from the pool-side at Coco Resorts, where the island put on its best performance for the guests and the people they had left behind in freezing New York. The action reached fever pitch with a private party for the Z100 winners, featuring Barbados-born music sensation Rihanna, now a hit across America, and artiste Ray J, brother of pop singer Brandy and host of the Black Entertainment Television (BET) show, The BET.com Countdown . Local St. Lucian band “Impact” also wowed the guests.
Allen Chastanet of Coco Resorts
The event drew Z100 radio fans and an equal number of mainly young St. Lucians, who came to get a preview of the talented Barbadian beauty and dancer before the St. Lucia Jazz festival, where she will appear in May.
Air Jamaica offers non-stop Lovebird A320 service from New York’s JFK International Airport to the island of St. Lucia, three days a week.
Air Jamaica’s inaugural flight arrives in St. Lucia
JM092 operates on Sundays, Mondays and Thursdays, departing New York at 7:00 a.m. and arriving St. Lucia at 12:35 p.m. On the return leg, JM093 departs St. Lucia at 6:35 p.m. and arrives in New York at 10:15 p.m.
Air Jamaica provides more non-stop flights to Jamaica than any other carrier with more than 270 flights per week from Atlanta, Baltimore/Washington, Chicago, Ft. Lauderdale , Los Angeles, Miami, Newark, New York (JFK), Orlando, and Philadelphia in the U.S., Toronto, Canada and from London to Montego Bay and Kingston.
The airline also offers intra-regional service with flights between Jamaica and Bahamas, Barbados, Bonaire, Cuba, Curaçao, Grand Cayman, Grenada and St. Lucia. The airline’s code share agreement with Delta Airlines, its joint fare arrangements and compatible schedules with United, and other U.S. carriers, extends its access to more than 150 cities within the Continental U.S.
