By Alexander Britell

In the biggest flight expansion to the Caribbean in several years, American Airlines has announced plans to launch eight new nonstop routes to the Caribbean this year, along with a huge expansion in frequencies from Miami.

Beginning in December, American, the world’s largest airline, will launch new Saturday service across the region.

That includes flights from Charlotte to both North Eleuthera and Abaco; flights from Dallas-Fort Worth to Aruba; from Miami to St Vincent; and from Chicago to Aruba, Grand Cayman, Nassau and Providenciales.

All of those new routes will launch on Dec. 22, with Charlotte and Dallas flights set to operate year round and Chicago flights to operate in the winter tourist season.

American Airlines will also be operating expanded daily service from Miami to Barbados; Curacao; Grand Bahama; Puerto Plata; Port of Spain; Santo Domingo and Saint Lucia, all of which will begin operations on Dec. 19 for the winter season.

It’s a huge statement from American, which has seen a significant increase in competition in the Caribbean from carriers like Southwest Airlines and JetBlue, both of which have been on massive expansion pushes to the region in recent years.

The Miami-St Vincent service is particularly notable, making it the first regular service by a US-based carrier to St Vincent and its new Argyle International Airport (Air Canada and Caribbean Airlines were the first carriers to launch flights to Argyle in the last year).

See below for a full chart of the new flight launches: