With the holidays behind us and the new year officially underway, many people are already feeling a case of the January blues. Post-holiday winter doldrums, as airlines know very well, are often fixed by a trip to a sunny destination.
As part of its winter plans for 2025, Delta Air Lines (DAL) just released an expanded schedule to the Caribbean, listing new flights to St. Maarten and Aruba and increased frequency for existing routes to Puerto Rico and the Cayman Islands.
Minneapolis St.-Paul International Airport (MSP) will benefit the most from new weekly flights to Queen Beatrix International Airport (AUA) in Oranjestad and 10 weekly flights to San Juan’s Luis Muñoz International Airport (SJU), which have been running since December.
Delta’s latest target? People looking to escape harsh midwestern winters
In further expanding its Midwestern network, Delta is also launching a new route to the Dominican Republic’s Punta Cana from Detroit’s Metropolitan Wayne County Airport (DTW). Missing the peak winter period slightly, the new flight will begin on May 10 but run year-round on a Boeing 737-900 (BA) plane.
The new route—first reported by the Caribbean Journal and already available to book on the Delta website—will run once a week on Saturday. A round-trip ticket for $724 is available for those who can commit to travel many months in advance.
Related: Southwest adds a new route that travelers have been begging for
Detroit has generally been on Delta’s radar for sun-seeker routes in particular (probably due to those long winters that many residents are looking to break up with a sunny getaway). On Dec. 21, the Atlanta-based carrier started running a new flight from the city to Lynden Pindling International Airport (NAS) in Nassau. Unlike the DTW-Punta Cana flight, this seasonal route will be retired for the season on April 12, 2025.
A Delta Airlines Airbus 321 jet at Aruba Reina Beatrix International Airport.
Punta Cana, Nassau and the Cayman Islands are other trending winter destinations in 2025
“As the leading carrier from MSP to Latin America and the Caribbean, we’re looking forward to increasing our seats to these popular destinations […],” Delta’s Senior Vice President of Network Planning Joe Esposito said in a statement when the latest round of winter destinations was formally announced last year. “With the addition of Aruba, St. Maarten and recently added Mazatlán, customers have three brand-new sunny destinations to look forward to this winter,” according to the statement.
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The November to March period is one in which airlines will up their flights to Caribbean and other tropical destinations. American Airlines (AAL) recently began running multiple new routes to St. Lucia, St. Maarten, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines from different U.S. cities while JetBlue Airways (JBLU) and Southwest (LUV) saw heightened tourist interest in the Bahamas and upped their route frequencies to Nassau in response.
Puerto Rico has also been on the radar for JetBlue and its low-cost competitor, Frontier Airlines FRON; both responded to heightened demand from mainland-based tourists and diaspora members traveling back home to visit family with new flights to San Juan that will start running from different U.S. cities in February and March 2025.
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