Travel giant Thomson is adding new weekly flights from London Gatwick to the island of St. Lucia.

Thomson, a TUI brand, has added a new 288-seater aircraft that could add as many as 9,000 additional seats to the island between May and December.

That will bring the total number of seats from the United Kingdom to St. Lucia to about 155,000, a 6 percent increase over 2016.

“This addition of flight by TUI Thomson will help improve the number of UK arrivals to Saint Lucia, and by extension other holidaymakers from Europe,” said St Lucia Department of Tourism official Deepa Girdari.

“We’re optimistic that for 2017/2018 we will see significant growth. I’m also told that this flight took in roughly 300 new passengers, and if we can sustain those numbers every week then we’re looking at over 15,000 new passengers to Saint Lucia over the next year,” said Deputy Chairperson of the Saint Lucia Tourist Board Leathon Khan. “That, by any measure, is very significant, and is good news for our taxi drivers, hotels, and tour operators.”

St. Lucia and Barbados are the only islands in the Eastern Caribbean that host TUI Thomson flights.

Don’t miss our list of the top St Lucia hotels.

— Caribbean Journal staff