Caribbean Airlines

When you suddenly see a hummingbird on the tail among the big US airlines in Miami or New York, you have Caribbean Airlines in your viewfinder. The state-owned airline of Trinidad and Tobago is a real rarity for European spotters – it has not landed in Europe for years. Yet it carries a big piece of Caribbean aviation history: it succeeded BWIA and took over Air Jamaica. Here you will learn how to recognize the airline, which types it flies and where you are most likely to catch it.

Caribbean Airlines at a glance

Caribbean Airlines is the flag carrier of Trinidad and Tobago. The company headquarters is in Piarco, right at the international airport of Port of Spain. The company is majority owned by the State of Trinidad and Tobago; since the takeover of Air Jamaica, the government of Jamaica also holds a minority stake. That is why the airline has two hubs: Port of Spain (POS) in the south of the Caribbean and Kingston (KIN) in Jamaica.

The network stretches from short island hops – above all the heavily flown connection between Trinidad and Tobago – through destinations in the eastern and western Caribbean to North America. There, Caribbean Airlines mainly serves Florida, New York and Toronto. There are no long-haul routes to Europe today.

The airline has no alliance. It relies instead on interline agreements with various partners that let passengers continue on one ticket. For you as a spotter, that means Caribbean Airlines never shows up in an alliance livery, always in its own design.

From BWIA to Caribbean Airlines

To understand Caribbean Airlines, you have to look back. Its predecessor, BWIA West Indies Airways, was one of the region’s most traditional airlines. Founded in the late 1930s by New Zealander Lowell Yerex as British West Indian Airways, it started flight operations in 1940. Later it was for a time part of Britain’s BOAC, and from the 1960s the State of Trinidad and Tobago took over the shares. In the region it was affectionately known as “Bee-Wee.”

Over the decades BWIA flew very different types: Boeing 727 and 707, Lockheed TriStar, MD-83 and most recently Airbus A340-300 and Boeing 737-800. Economically, though, the airline remained under permanent pressure. In September 2006, after failed negotiations between management and unions, the company announced its closure; on December 31, 2006, BWIA flew for the last time.

Caribbean Airlines had already been founded as a new company in the fall of 2006. On January 1, 2007 it began flight operations – with six Boeing 737-800s and one Airbus A340-300, a much smaller workforce and many former BWIA employees. The codes BW and BWA passed to the new airline, and that is exactly why “BWA” still shows on the tracker today, even though BWIA is long history.

Tobago Express and Air Jamaica

In October 2007 Caribbean Airlines took over the regional company Tobago Express, which served the short domestic connection to Tobago with Dash 8 turboprops. The much bigger step followed shortly after: on May 1, 2010, Caribbean Airlines took over the fleet and route rights of Air Jamaica, and in 2011 Jamaica’s stake in Caribbean Airlines was sealed by contract. Kingston became the second hub. The well-known Air Jamaica brand with its colorful tails disappeared in the following years; in 2015 the company was fully absorbed into Caribbean Airlines.

Codes, callsign and registrations

• IATA code BW: appears in the flight number, on the departure board and on the ticket.
• ICAO code BWA: appears in the air traffic control flight plan and on most flight trackers.
• Callsign: on the radio Caribbean Airlines calls in as “CARIBBEAN AIRLINES”; BWIA used to use “WEST INDIAN.”
• Registration 9Y-: the country prefix of Trinidad and Tobago.

The codes BW and BWA have nothing to do with today’s name – they are a leftover from BWIA. If you don’t know that, you will search the tracker in vain for an abbreviation with a “C.” You can read more about the difference between the two code systems in the guide to IATA and ICAO codes, and why flight number and callsign are not the same is explained in the article on callsign and flight number.

The fleet: 737 MAX 8 and ATR 72-600

Caribbean Airlines’ fleet is deliberately lean today. According to publicly available fleet overviews (as of mid-2026), only two types fly in passenger service, with about ten aircraft each:

Type	Role	Seats	Spotter tip
Boeing 737 MAX 8	North America and longer Caribbean routes	160 in three cabin classes	Newest generation, in the fleet since late 2021
ATR 72-600	Short island hops, mainly Trinidad–Tobago	68, economy only	High-wing turboprop, often on the island bridge to Tobago
Orders	More MAX 8s and ATR 72-600s, Embraer E175 and freighters (ATR 72-600F, 737-800F)	–	Delivery status changes, treat figures with caution

The Boeing 737 MAX 8 is the backbone for everything that goes beyond the Caribbean. The worldwide grounding of the MAX delayed deliveries; the first aircraft only reached the airline in late 2021. As the new jets arrived, the older 737-800 was handed back step by step; by 2023 the last Next Generation jet had disappeared from the fleet. The MAX 8 has a cabin with business class, an intermediate premium-economy-style class and economy.

For the short routes the airline uses the ATR 72-600. The ATR replaced the Dash 8 of the former Tobago Express and is the typical aircraft on the Port of Spain–Tobago connection with its dense frequency. The turboprops are made by ATR, the jets come from Boeing.

Historical types

If you sort through old photos, you will come across more types in Caribbean colors: Airbus A340-300 (only in the first operating year 2007, on the route to London Heathrow), Boeing 737-800 (the workhorse from 2007 to 2023), Boeing 767-300ER (2012 to 2016, including to London Gatwick) and Dash 8-300 (until 2014, from the Tobago Express stock). A photo of a Caribbean 767 or A340 is a genuine archive piece today.

How to recognize Caribbean Airlines

The most important feature is the hummingbird. Trinidad is known as the “land of the hummingbird,” and the little bird has been the airline’s logo since the first operating day in 2007. The colorful bird motif stands out clearly from the rather understated designs of many US airlines. In 2020 Caribbean Airlines presented a revised livery; an ATR with the registration 9Y-TTI led the way, and by 2024 the last turboprops had been repainted too. On older pictures you may therefore still see the original version.

BWIA last carried a completely different symbol: a steelpan, Trinidad’s national instrument, on a green-blue design. So if you find a photo with a steelpan on the tail, it belongs to the BWIA era before 2007.

Routes and network

Caribbean Airlines’ network has three levels. The first is the domestic bridge between Trinidad and Tobago, served very frequently with ATR 72-600s. The second are regional connections within the Caribbean – to Barbados, Grenada, St. Lucia, Jamaica, Curaçao, Sint Maarten and other islands. The third level are the North America routes to Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Orlando, New York JFK and Toronto.

Especially on the regional routes, the network is in motion. Caribbean Airlines adds destinations, cuts them again or reduces frequencies, depending on demand and cost situation. Since the demise of the eastern Caribbean carrier LIAT, several companies share the island connections, including interCaribbean Airways; in recent years Caribbean Airlines has added destinations anew but most recently also dropped individual routes again, according to publicly available information in 2026 including connections to Dominica, St. Kitts, Guyana and Suriname. As of October 2026 the rule therefore is: don’t rely on old route lists, check the current schedule.

Caribbean Airlines no longer flies to Europe. The London Heathrow connection with the A340 ended as early as 2007, the later route to London Gatwick ran until January 2016 – in the same year the 767s left the fleet as well. Those traveling from the Caribbean to Europe today use airlines such as British Airways, Virgin Atlantic or Condor.

Spotting Caribbean Airlines

For spotters from German-speaking countries, Caribbean Airlines is a travel airline. You meet it where the Caribbean and North America come together.

In Miami it is worth combining your visit with the many other Caribbean and Latin American airlines; tips on spots and procedures are in the guide Plane spotting in Miami. For New York, Plane spotting in New York helps, and general advice on entry, rules and planning is in the Tips for a spotting trip to the USA. If you are heading to Sint Maarten, Maho Beach is the region’s most famous spot – but Caribbean Airlines is not on the schedule there as regularly as the big US airlines.

A tip for tropical spots: at midday the air above hot asphalt shimmers strongly, which makes telephoto shots soft. Plan your photos for the morning and evening hours instead; how to deal with the effect is explained in the article on heat haze in aircraft photography.

Georgetown incident in 2011

A serious incident is also part of the history. On July 30, 2011, a Boeing 737-800 with the registration 9Y-PBM, operating as flight BW523, overran the end of the runway in the rain at Georgetown, Guyana, and broke apart. There were 157 passengers and six crew members on board, and all survived. For spotters the case is relevant mainly as part of the fleet history – the aircraft belonged to the first generation of the Caribbean 737s.

Common mix-ups

• Taking BW for a Caribbean abbreviation – the code comes from BWIA and was simply taken over.
• Equating Caribbean Airlines and BWIA – BWIA ended in 2006, Caribbean Airlines is a new company that succeeded to its legacy.
• Taking Air Jamaica for an active airline – Air Jamaica is part of Caribbean Airlines and history as a brand.
• Logging every hummingbird 737 as a MAX – on photos from before 2023 it is usually a 737-800.
• Confusing Caribbean jets with Cayman Airways – both fly 737 MAX 8s; the 9Y- registration decides.
• Hoping for sightings in Europe – there have been no scheduled flights to London since 2016.

Conclusion

Caribbean Airlines is the airline that unites two big names of Caribbean aviation: it carries BWIA’s codes and took over Air Jamaica. Today it flies a compact fleet of 737 MAX 8s and ATR 72-600s through the islands and to North America. For you as a spotter it is a travel highlight – most likely in Florida, New York or Toronto, but certainly in Port of Spain and Kingston.