Above: the city of Willemstad, Curacao (CJ Photo)

By the Caribbean Journal staff

Air Canada is expanding its service to the Dutch Caribbean island of Curacao in time for the summer season.

The carrier announced that it would be expanding its seasonal service to year-round flights, with a nonstop Toronto-Curacao flight every Friday.

It’s the latest addition to Curacao for the company; in January, the company launched new nonstop service on Thursdays between Montreal and Curacao.

The expanded service is launching this summer, helping to boost airlift to an island that received a major lift at the end of last year with new flights via JetBlue.

In December, JetBlue began operating nonstop flights between New York’s John F Kennedy International Airport and Curacao’s Hato International Airport.

After moderate growth of 2.5 percent in 2014, the island has seen big increases so far in 2015, with a 13.7 percent increase in stayover arrivals in the first two months of this year, according to data from the Caribbean Tourism Organization.