One Caribbean (St. Vincent Argyle International) has taken delivery of its maiden B747-400, N508BB (msn 29031), News784 has reported.
The 20.6-year-old Boeing quadjet arrived at St. Vincent Argyle International on May 24, 2019, following a ferry flight from Phoenix Sky Harbor, Flightradar24 ADS-B data shows. It was previously operated by China Airlines (CI, Taipei Taoyuan) and retired in October 2017. Subsequently, the aircraft was stored at Victorville.
One Caribbean is a locally owned operator using a Beech 1900D aircraft to link St. Vincent with Bridgetown and Tortola which aims to use the B747 aircraft to launch flights to Dubai, among others. In 2018, the then-unnamed airline received strong verbal backing from the Vincentian Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves.
"St. Vincent and the Grenadines would have its own B747 indigenous based airline in the not too distant future, a group of Vincentian pilots and business people want to start a small locally based 747 service, it would link St Vincent from different airports, to which my government is going to give full support," Gonsalves said at that time.
The airline has also applied for a Foreign Air Carrier Permit with the US Department of Transportation ahead of plans to offer ad-hoc charter flights to the United States.
According to the ch-aviation capacity module, besides One Caribbean, St. Vincent Argyle Int'l currently sees little and largely regional traffic. The airport sees 55 weekly scheduled departures, of which 49 are local flights operated by LIAT (Antigua and Barbuda) (Antigua). St. Vincent's medium-haul network includes flights operated by Caribbean Airlines (BW, Port of Spain), American Airlines (AA, Dallas/Fort Worth), and Air Canada (AC, Montréal Trudeau) to New York JFK, Miami International and Toronto Pearson.
