Quirky & Decent: Cayman Airways Review New York JFK to Grand Cayman (Economy) 737-Max 8

Rating: 3.5/5 (Fine for a 3 hour nonstop flight, and cheap!)

Route: JFK-GCM

Price: $132 (one-way, shoulder season in November).

1. Introduction & about the Airline
2. Flight Review
3. Conclusion

Introduction & about the Airline

For my first ever trip down to the Caribbean, I was flying onboard Cayman Airways out of NYC. See here for my intro post and for or my Kimpton Seafire Resort Review.

Cayman Airways is actually a super interesting airline, in that they are super duper inefficient and unprofitable. A consumer surplus business, as they say.

Meanwhile, the Cayman Islands government has become quite wealthy as the country has gained prominence as a financial hub due to lack of corporate taxation (fun fact: there are more registered companies on the island than people that live there). So it’s an interesting juxtaposition, where the government is willing to fund the company with equity injections in order to bolster tourism to contribute more to their local economy, even if at a loss.

Cayman Airways has just 9 aircraft in its fleet:

4x 737-8 (Max)

3x De Havilland Twin Otters for Intra-Island Flights

2x Saab 340s

With this fleet, the airline has managed to rack up $41M in losses in 2018-2022. Interestingly, Boeing actually paid the company $11M USD to make up for the grounding for its 737 Max 8 fleet, which maybe plugs some of that hole.

Right now, the airline only flies a handful of routes to the following US cities:

Miami

New York

Tampa

Denver

Los Angeles

The carrier also serves some neighboring countries and Little Cayman / Cayman Brac, but that’s their entire network as of late 2024, which makes sense for a fleet of only 4 jet aircraft.

Cayman Airways currently departs out of Terminal 1 out of JFK, which is JFK’s main international terminal. It’s also one of the older terminals, so definitely not worth going to early unless you have access to some of the Priority Pass Lounges in terminal 1. I checked out the Air France Lounge before the flight for some breakfast, and it was actually pretty great (by priority pass standards).

Also to note – terminal 1 at JFK was completely empty in the morning, much different than how I’ve usually seen it. Makes sense given how most of the larger international flights to the Middle East and Europe are later in the day.

Before long it was time to board my flight, which was out of Gate 1 this morning.

Flight Review

Not going to lie, I always do get a bit nervous now flying on any 737 Max type of plane. Perhaps irrational, but Boeing has not inspired confidence recently. At least the winglets are cool on Cayman Airways:

In terms of seating on this plane, Cayman Airways’ 737s have 160 seats: 16 in business class (equivalent of domestic first recliners on a US carrier), and 144 in economy.

My flight down to Grand Cayman this morning was set for just 3 hours and 20 minutes, which is pretty great to go from NYC winter to bathtub water temperature ocean.

The economy seats are pretty basic on Cayman Airways, with no IFE:

Economy seats were standard in terms of comfort. I’m 6’2 and I could kind of fit in, which is the usual for me in economy seats. Pitch on the seats is 32″, which is Average / Above Average for US airlines.

Today was super nice weather at JFK, which made for some nice takeoff views:

Soon enough, we were airborne, making out quick flight down to the Cayman Islands.

Shortly thereafter the crew began the drinks and meal service. For drinks, they were serving complimentary Rum Punch out of gallon water jugs, which was kind of a funny vibe for an 8am flight. I got one of course, just to try.

I wasn’t expecting any food on the flight, but they gave a choice of chicken, salmon, or veggie wraps. I got the chicken, and it was truly horrific, something out of the nightmares of the JFK basement lunch lines (or what I imagine happens for JFK catering). For a flight this short, they should honestly just give some choices of packaged snacks – it’d be cheaper and save passengers’ stomachs (I’ll take my consulting gig whenever @Cayman Airways).

Another thing to note from this flight – the load factor was probably 30%, where majority of people had at least one seat open next to them. This whole lack of profitability thing is starting to make sense!

On the flipside though, this flight was quite cheap: one-way tickets were $132 each, which I booked with my American Express Platinum for 5x points. I value Amex Points at 2 cents per point, so that’s basically another 10% off of any flight purchase, which is pretty incredible (and part of why I keep that card around despite the $695 fee).

The water kind of made up for the crappy food, though:

Also the view out the window of the actual water started to get pretty stunning once we entered airspace towards the Bahamas:

Before long, it was landing time over a stormy Cayman Islands. Tropical Storm Sara was hitting the islands on and off for the first few days of my trip, which made for moody skies but otherwise wasn’t too bad.

Conclusion

Overall, Cayman Airways was a fine experience with decent legroom in economy and pretty cheap fares. The service was average and the food terrible, but honestly for a 3 hour flight I wasn’t even expecting any so it’s no big deal. In the future, I’d fly Cayman Airways again, but wouldn’t necessarily go out of my way to fly them vs. competition, of which they have a decent amount of out of NYC.

Anyways, on to the more exciting part: the Kimpton Seafire Resort. See (HERE) for my review.