JetBlue returns to St. Croix after five-year hiatus

JetBlue is touching down in St. Croix once again, returning after a five-year hiatus credited at the time to poor flight performance.

“As we embark on a new season of joy, laughter and togetherness in America’s very own paradise,” Assistant Tourism Commissioner Elizabeth Hansen Watley, said in a statement to The Daily News. “We welcome the opportunity to embrace our neighbors, who are more like family, through JetBlue’s inaugural flight to the big island of St.Croix.”

The company, which first announced its return in May with an anticipated launch in December, will have its first flight to the island on Dec. 12, the V.I. Port Authority said in a statement Wednesday. JetBlue, in a May 8 press release, said the airline’s return to the southernmost U.S. Virgin Island corresponds with its expanded service in Puerto Rico and the announcement of two additional routes in the Caribbean, from New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport to St. Vincent and Bonaire.