The island government is concentrating efforts on boosting service between key U.S. mainland cities and foreign destinations including Mexico, Germanu, Brazil, the United Kingdom and Spain, he said.
     
     Pérez-Riera announced that Puerto Rico has been picked to host Network Latin America airline convention in 2011.
     
     “That will give us the opportunity to host in Puerto Rico industry executives who have the power to make decisions,” the Economic Development chief said.
     
     The Puerto Rico Air Access Summit at the Convention Center in Isla Grande drew representatives from the public and private sector.
     
     A surge in new flights to Puerto Rico have been announced in recent months even as American Airlines said it was slashing service and personnel on the island.
     
     British Airways announced in October it will launch a new flight between London’s Gatwick International Airport and Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport outside San Juan this spring.
     
     JetBlue announced plans to continue expanding its San Juan focus city at Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport (SJU) with daily nonstop service to the Florida cities of Jacksonville and Tampa starting this spring.
     
     AirTran Airways also announced it will launch nonstop service to Tampa. Southwest Airlines is acquiring AirTran, which will mark Southwest’s entry into the Caribbean market.
     
     American Airlines announced in September it is cutting more than a dozen flights from Puerto Rico to U.S. and Caribbean destinations next year due to the economic crisis. The number of local workers to be laid off has yet to be determined.
     
     American will discontinue flights between San Juan and seven cities including Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Tampa and Santo Domingo by early April, resulting in a drop from an average of 25 flights to 18.
     
     Meanwhile, American Eagle will cut service to six international destinations including Haiti, Trinidad and the Dominican Republic tourism hubs of La Romana and Puerta Plata. Those groundings will cut an average of 33 flights to 23 flights.
     
     On a related front, Public-Private Partnership Authority Executive Director David Alvarez said this month he expects airlines to get in line behind a plan to privatize operation of Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport “within a matter of months.”
     
     The island’s main airport is one of four across the country participating in a Federal Aviation Administration pilot privatization program, which requires that 65 percent of the airlines at a given airport back the move.
     
     The Public-Private Partnership Authority (PPPA) expects to put the project out to bid early next year and close a deal in 2011 that would raise an upfront fee of about $1 billion. More importantly, officials say, the PPP will substantially improve this important transportation and tourism asset.
     
     Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport is Puerto Rico’s main commercial airport and has the largest number of passengers and cargo activity in the Caribbean.
     
     However, management deficiencies in recent years have plagued Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport, which served more than 4.2 million passengers and 222,931 short tons of cargo in fiscal 2010, causing it to fall far short of its perceived full potential.
     
     The airport has lost ground to regional competitors in the Dominican Republic, Miami and Costa Rica, which have managed to boost their attractiveness as travel destinations as Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport’s has dwindled.
     
     Despite these declines the airport still has strong aero-revenue compared to many of its peers. However, it significantly underperforms its peers in food and beverage revenue and car rental and parking revenues on a per-passenger yield basis, according to a PPPA airport feasibility study.