More than 55 international flights a week serve the Cayman Islands, with the direct service from Miami to Grand Cayman on Cayman Airways and American Airlines accounting for 28 flights a week. The islands also are a hub for travel within the Caribbean, and a small plane service, Cayman Express, shuttles daily between the three Caymans. The national carrier, Cayman Airways, packs a fleet of five Boeing 737s and two Twin Otters. The airports on Grand Cayman and Cayman Brac can handle jets; Edward Bodden Airfield on Little Cayman, on the other hand, is a private, uncertified aerodrome served only by Cayman Express during daylight hours.
Overall, eight airlines operate international flights into the Cayman Islands, from the US, Canada and the UK, but Cayman Airways, with its distinctive Sir Turtle livery, has the most nonstop flights of all. The airline flies nonstop to Chicago, New York, Tampa, Miami, and Washington, D.C., in the U.S.; Montego Bay and Kingston in Jamaica; Havana, Cuba and La Ceiba, Honduras. Other international carriers include Air Canada and WestJet to Toronto, Delta to Atlanta, American Airlines to Miami, US Airways to Charlotte and Philadelphia, Continental to Houston, and United to Houston and Newark. The most recent addition is JetBlue which flies to New York and Boston. From the UK, British Airways flies from London to Grand Cayman with a stop in Nassau, Bahamas.
Cayman Express operates several daily, 18-seater Twin Otter flights between Grand Cayman, Little Cayman and Cayman Brac. Island Air also runs a private charter service between the islands. Within the Caribbean, daily Cayman Airways flights arrive and depart Kingston, and a less frequent service linking the island to Montego Bay in Jamaica, La Ceiba in Honduras, Havana and Panama. The flight from Honduras is with Sosa Airlines. Note that many regional and inter-island flight schedules are reduced during hurricane season months, particularly around September.
Private jets are accommodated to Owen Roberts International and Charles Kirkconnell, but Little Cayman’s airport does not have the necessary customs and immigration facilities, and parts of the runway are still grass. Private aircraft do not require a digital 406 ELT distress beacon to visit the Cayman Islands.
