Air Jamaica First Class?
 

Does anyone have experience with Air Jamaica? Can you give me some advice on whether upgrading to first class on this airline is worth the extra miles? Should I avoid this airline all together?

Thanks.

I haven't had the pleasure of flying with them, but I do have experience with their employees. I worked at a hotel where their crews laid over. Air Jamaica crews are, without a doubt, the nicest, most sincere, lovely group of airline employees that I have ever encountered. Compared against the likes of other domestic carriers employees (starts with D, ends in A), who routinely humiliated the front desk, screamed and complained incessantly, they were a breath of fresh air.


Air Jamaicas planes are very new as well.

I flew Air Jamaica roundtrip from BOS to MBJ in February.

They offer an A class fare in the market that was only slightly more expensive than the lowest coach fare (i.e. approximately $850 rt in F, versus approx $700 rt in Y). In addition, they give a 50% discount for kids, even in first, as opposed to everyone else's 25% discount. In fact, if you book the flight through DL under the DL codeshare flight number, the fares are not as good, and only the 25% discount applies.

As for the flight itself, outbound to MBJ they did give passes for entry into the DL Crown Room at BOS, and the meal on board was fine. Service was typical domestic F service. On the return you were able to wait in the Air Jamaica first class lounge in MBJ. They then boarded the entire flight, and only once all the coach passengers were on board, did they then call the club and have the first class passengers sent down to the gate. Made boarding a breeze.

For the relatively small additional cost to go in F, I would pay it again. If you are using miles, I'm not sure the difference is worth it.

If you get to avoid the cattle call at MBJ airport, it is well worth the extra $$. That was the only negative experience when we flew from FLL-MBJ and back a couple of years ago.

Air Jamaica, formerly known as "Soon-Come Airlines" has earned its current reputation as being a solid product, and certainly competitive with the ancient 737s, 727s and a300s that Usair and AA fly to MBJ.

AS noted above, it is often only a 30-50% premium to pay first rather then coach. But the service is not all that much better, although the seats are wider, and, as noted avoiding the check-in and boarding lines at MBJ can be worth the price of admission.

This should NOT affect your current decision, but just to complain, before the current ownership the Jamaican government owned and ran AJ, and it was notorious for loooooong delays and many, many canceled flights. On one trip about seven years ago, we had a 12 hour delay at BWI going down and a cancelation that ended up being a Tower Air charter plane on the way back about 10 hours after scheduled departure.

But with the newly leased a320s and new ownership, AJ has really, really come around.

Irie and enjoy!!!!

This is a question for the "Airline, Hotels", etc. board over at FT Travel. There is no specific miles question (rather it is about service levels) so it isn't exactly appropriate for "MilesBuzz". Please continue to follow it on that board.

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Craig6z
Buzz & United Moderator
[email protected]

[This message has been edited by Moderator2 (edited 04-24-2002).]