This Fast-Growing U.S. City Is Becoming a Caribbean Gateway — With Four New Nonstop Beach Routes
Southwest is adding Saturday nonstops from Nashville to Aruba, Montego Bay and St. Thomas, plus a Columbus-Punta Cana route, starting next spring.
Southwest Airlines is building its next Caribbean gateway far from South Florida. The carrier is launching a major expansion led by four Saturday-only routes from Nashville, opening nonstop service to Aruba; Montego Bay, Jamaica; and St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Most begin March 13.
The airline is also adding Saturday flights between Columbus, Ohio and Punta Cana, giving another Midwestern market a nonstop link to the Dominican Republic, the Caribbean's largest resort destination. Every one of the new routes is built around the Saturday-to-Saturday calendar that seven-night resort and all-inclusive stays run on.
Why it matters: travelers across Tennessee, Kentucky and Alabama have generally had to connect through Atlanta, Miami or Orlando to reach these islands. A weekly nonstop turns a multi-leg itinerary into a single flight, and it puts distinctly different vacations within one airport's reach, from Aruba's dry, hurricane-belt-dodging beaches to Jamaica's resort corridor around Montego Bay.
The St. Thomas addition may be the most notable. Southwest only entered the U.S. Virgin Islands in February, and Nashville now becomes a second gateway to a territory Americans can visit without a passport, with easy ferry hops onward to St. John and the British Virgin Islands.
Southwest already flies from Nashville to Cancun, San Juan and Los Cabos, so the four additions create one of its most varied warm-weather networks outside its biggest traditional hubs. Weekly seasonal routes often start small, but strong demand tends to earn more frequencies and longer seasons.
