Air Jamaica to Increase Fleet Over Next 5 Years

President and Chief Executive Officer of Air Jamaica, Michael Conway, has said that “in five years time, we will have maybe 20 to 30 aircraft in our fleet”.
There are 17 aircraft in the airline’s current fleet of which 14 have been scheduled and three are going through routine maintenance.
“We are very active in securing acquisitions,” Mr. Conway told JIS News in a recent interview noting that, “at least half a dozen 757s will replace our A321s while six A319s will be added also, two of which will be devoted to comprehensive cross-island service to be initiated later this year and four to replace the A320s.”
According to Mr. Conway, “we have modified our fleet selection based on aircraft that were not available at the time we made our original selections,” adding that, “we are close to making a final decision on dispatching our two A340 aircraft and that will conclude our fleet transition going forward.”
Responding to reports that the decision to replace the Airbuses with Boeing aircraft was a bad one in terms of safety, Mr. Conway stated that, “there is no discernable difference between the safety of the Boeing and Airbus aircraft.”
The Air Jamaica CEO noted that, “certain issues and concerns arise each time there is a change from one type of aircraft to another, which include issues to do with training and whether all the cost factors have been fully taken into account.””Concerns were raised specifically about our original contemplation of acquiring Boeing 737s as there had been some reports circulating about problems with the 300, 400 and 500 series of those aircraft,” Mr. Conway said.
He further explained that, “some people had faulty research relating to accidents 25 to 30 years ago and a lot of misinformation was being promulgated.”