By LCN Business Desk
Grantley Adams International Airport to Fort-de-France is 146 miles and 55 minutes, and from 25 January 2027 it will have two airlines on it. interCaribbean Airways opens three rotations a week that morning, into a market Caribbean Airlines already serves twice weekly and is selling now for dates beyond the newcomer's launch.
What is interCaribbean offering?
Three mid-morning rotations built to feed its Barbados hub.
Flights run Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. JY722 leaves Barbados at 10:55 and reaches Fort-de-France at 11:50; JY723 leaves at 12:20 and is back at 13:15. Bookings are open.
Chief executive Trevor Sadler calls Martinique "an important addition to our network" and the route "a new step toward bringing Caribbean communities closer together", speaking to Martinique La 1ère. The Barbadian coverage is the release, unquoted.
Who already flies it?
Caribbean Airlines, on a wide-body-cabin turboprop in the afternoon.
BW278 leaves Barbados at 15:35 on Sundays and Thursdays, an ATR 72 in a single economy cabin of 68 seats, 55 minutes over 146 miles.
Caribbean Airlines is selling the route on its own site. Its Fort-de-France to Bridgetown page quotes round trips in economy from EUR285 to EUR306, on fares it says were collected within the previous 48 hours, and the dated offers include a 30 January to 4 March 2027 return at EUR305, departing five days after interCaribbean's first flight.
The two carriers are positioned at different times of day. The incumbent leaves Barbados in mid-afternoon, which suits a passenger travelling point to point. The newcomer is back in Bridgetown at 13:15, ahead of its own 18:05 departure for Georgetown.
Who has left the route?
Three carriers since 2021, one of them this year.
| Carrier | Last scheduled flight on the pairing | What happened |
|---|---|---|
| LIAT | 18 June 2021 | Ceased operations; a successor began limited service in 2024 |
| Air Antilles | 30 March 2024 | Liquidated 27 April 2026 by the Commercial Court of Pointe-à-Pitre |
| Winair | 14 March 2026 | Still trading; off this pairing |
Last-flight dates from FlightsFrom; the Air Antilles liquidation from its corporate record.
Air Antilles is the most recent loss to the French Caribbean specifically. Based at Pointe-à-Pitre, it flew Guadeloupe, Martinique, Saint-Barthélemy and Saint-Martin alongside Antigua, Barbados, Dominica, Puerto Rico, Saint Lucia and Sint Maarten, and every one of those is now marked suspended. It had already been through the collapse of the CAIRE group in September 2023, a relaunch in July 2024 on a reduced fleet, and a six-month court-led restructuring decided in February 2026, before the April liquidation.
The route has not been idle. Its operators have turned over three times in five years, and a second carrier arriving in January enters a thin market rather than reviving a dead one.
What changed in Martinique's status this year?
It joined CARICOM.
Martinique became the Community's seventh associate member with effect from 16 June 2026, after an accession agreement signed in February 2025 and France's instrument of accession, and took its seat at the 51st Conference of Heads of Government in Saint Lucia the following month. French Guiana followed as the eighth on 7 July 2026, Barbados Today reported from that conference.
The incoming carrier is itself based in an associate member: interCaribbean Airways is domiciled in the Turks and Caicos Islands, which have held that status far longer. Eight associate members now sit alongside the fifteen full members: Anguilla, Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Curaçao, French Guiana, Martinique and the Turks and Caicos Islands. The incumbent is a CARICOM member state's airline, Caribbean Airlines being majority-owned by Trinidad and Tobago.
Under what air services arrangement does it run?
CARICOM's own instrument is written for member states, and Martinique is not one.
The Community's instrument is the CARICOM Multilateral Air Services Agreement, which lets airlines owned in the Community fly between member states without restriction on routes or capacity, and which Haiti signed this year. It was opened for signature at the 29th Inter-Sessional Meeting of CARICOM Heads of Government in Port-au-Prince on 26 and 27 February 2018, and its Article 32 provides that it enters into force when the seventh instrument of ratification is deposited, which has happened. Associate membership is a different status: associate members take part in functional cooperation and attend the Conference.
Neither the Barbados nor the Martinique announcement says which bilateral or multilateral arrangement authorises this route, and no statement of it from the airline, the Barbados authorities or the French authorities has been found on the public record this newspaper can reach.
What does it mean from Guyana?
Barbados is the connecting point, and Guyana is the first destination the airline names from it.
La 1ère lists the onward destinations reachable from Bridgetown as Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, Antigua and Barbuda, Sint Maarten, the Bahamas, Jamaica and the Turks and Caicos. Guyana appears first on that list and is named in the Barbados coverage too.
The carrier added Guyana to that hub earlier this year. From 8 March 2026 it opened five non-stop routes from Barbados, among them JY788 to Ogle, Georgetown's Eugene F. Correia International Airport, three times a week, with its existing service to Cheddi Jagan International Airport stated as rising to eleven weekly flights. Lyndon Gardiner, the airline's chairman, said at the time that expanding non-stop options from Barbados had been a priority for the company. Both frequencies are as announced in December 2025 for the first quarter of 2026, and no current timetable confirming them for late 2026 has been found on the record this newspaper can reach.
Guyana is meanwhile trying to be the hub rather than to use one. President Irfaan Ali said on 29 September that the country is ready to finalise negotiations for a major airline to use Terminal 2 at Cheddi Jagan as its global hub, without naming a carrier, terms or timeline. Bridgetown, in the same period, has gained five non-stop routes and a sixth from January, and now has two carriers competing on Martinique.
What does the incoming announcement not say?
The price, the aircraft, and any measure of the demand it is entering.
- No fare. Neither the Barbados nor the Martinique report gives one, and none has been found published by the airline for this route. The incumbent quotes a price on its own website every day, so the benchmark a traveller or a freight forwarder would use is the incumbent's, not the newcomer's. - No aircraft type, so no seat count. Both say "ATR". interCaribbean runs both ATR 42 and ATR 72 airframes, nine of the smaller type against two of the larger as the fleet stood in May 2026, and the two are not close: the ATR 72-500 is given at 68 seats, the ATR 42-500 at 48 by seat-map operators and Aviation Week and at 40 by Wikipedia's fleet table. On the fleet mix the smaller type is the likelier, which would put the newcomer below the incumbent's 68 on every rotation. - No demand figure. No passenger estimate, load-factor assumption or traffic study appears in either report, and none has been published by the airline or either territory's authorities that this newspaper can find.
The entities
- interCaribbean Airways is a Turks and Caicos carrier operating ATR 42 and ATR 72 turboprops, with a hub at Barbados.
- Trevor Sadler is its chief executive and Lyndon Gardiner its chairman.
- Caribbean Airlines is the Trinidad and Tobago carrier operating the pairing as BW278.
- Air Antilles was the Guadeloupe-based regional carrier liquidated on 27 April 2026.
- Winair flew the pairing until March 2026 and still trades.
- LIAT flew it until 2021.
- Grantley Adams International Airport in Barbados and Martinique Aimé Césaire International Airport at Fort-de-France are the two ends.
- Martinique is a French overseas department and, since 16 June 2026, CARICOM's seventh associate member.
- French Guiana became the eighth associate member on 7 July 2026.
- CARICOM Multilateral Air Services Agreement permits Community-owned airlines to fly between member states without route or capacity restriction.
- Eugene F. Correia International Airport at Ogle and Cheddi Jagan International Airport are the Guyanese airports on interCaribbean's Barbados hub.
Figures
- 25 January 2027: interCaribbean's first flight, three a week on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Source: Barbados Today, 10 November 2026. - JY722 10:55 to 11:50, JY723 12:20 to 13:15: the published rotation. Source: as above and Martinique La 1ère, 11 November 2026. - Twice weekly, BW278 at 15:35, ATR 72 at 68 seats: the incumbent's service. Source: FlightsFrom. - EUR285 to EUR306: round-trip economy fares Caribbean Airlines quotes on its own site for Fort-de-France to Bridgetown, collected within 48 hours, including EUR305 for a 30 January 2027 departure. - 146 miles, 55 minutes: the sector, on both carriers' published times. - 16 June 2026: Martinique's CARICOM associate membership took effect, as the seventh associate member. Source: Barbados Today, 7 July 2026. - 18 June 2021, 30 March 2024, 14 March 2026: last scheduled flights on the pairing by LIAT, Air Antilles and Winair. Source: FlightsFrom route history. - 27 April 2026: Air Antilles placed in judicial liquidation by the Commercial Court of Pointe-à-Pitre.
Frequently Asked Questions
When do interCaribbean's Barbados to Martinique flights start? On Monday 25 January 2027, three times a week on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, with bookings already open.
Is there already a direct flight between Barbados and Martinique? Yes. Caribbean Airlines operates the pairing as BW278, twice weekly on an ATR 72, and sells it on its own website for dates beyond interCaribbean's launch.
How much does it cost? Caribbean Airlines quotes round trips in economy from about EUR285 to EUR306, on fares its site says were collected within the previous 48 hours. interCaribbean's announcement gives no fare.
How long is the flight? About 55 minutes over 146 miles, on both carriers' published times.
Is Martinique part of CARICOM? It is an associate member with effect from 16 June 2026, the seventh. It is a French overseas department, not a CARICOM member state. French Guiana became the eighth on 7 July 2026.