R to L: Richard Pile, District Sales Manager, Delta Air Lines, chats with Barbados Tourism Authority’s (BTA) Chairman, Adrian Elcock; BTA’s Interim President and CEO, Petra Roach; and Barbados Hotel & Tourism Association’s (BHTA) President, Sunil Chatrani

Delta Air Lines is launching nonstop flights to Barbados beginning on December 4, 2014, twice weekly between Grantley Adams International Airport in Bridgetown and both New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport, and Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, where connections to cities across the United States are available.

Flights will operate Thursdays and Saturdays, and two flights will start simultaneously, one from New York into Barbados and then onto Atlanta; and then a second one originating in Atlanta, traveling to Barbados and on to New York.

The two spacious Boeing 737 aircrafts have a seating capacity of 160, consisting of 16 business class seats, 18 economy comfort seats and 126 economy seats on each flight. The 737 offers travelers amenities including complimentary personal television programming with 18 free channels from DISH Network, comfortable leather seats and up to 4 more inches of legroom with Economy Comfort.

“Bringing 160 seats on each airplane into Barbados starting December 4 is very exciting for us,” said Richard Pile, District Sales Manager at Delta Air Lines. “It offers several opportunities for Barbados including the connectivity through the Atlanta gateway, which will now connect Barbados to about 220 destinations. In addition, by having the Barbados services come in from Atlanta and then up to New York, we are making sure that the airplanes get back to our hubs in time to make connections to various cities across the USA and throughout the world.”

Adrian Elcock, Chairman of the Board of Directors at the Barbados Tourism Authority said, “We now have an exciting opportunity to grow the US market and bring it back to the halcyon days before, where we will be able to have well over 150,000 persons coming into Barbados as visitors.”

Barbados is one of 97 international locations on Delta’s growing route map, and one of the more than 225 destinations throughout the Americas to boast Delta’s award-winning service.