Vacation Express
 

Not sure which forum this should be in (I think it displays a risk to all 121 carriers, so I put it here), but apparently this outfit is using Canadian pilots and planes to carry US passengers from ATL, CVG, BNA and MSY to various Caribbean destinations and Mexico. Anybody know anything about this?

Don't see how that is possible. Cabotage is looked at closely.

Sunwing flys these routes

Nominee for handle of the year?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this is not cabotage. If they are flying from one US city to the Caribbean or Mexico that is no different than what all foreign carriers do everyday. Now if they are picking people up in CVG and dropping them off in MSY and then continuing on to Mexico, that is cabotage. But stopping and only picking up people is also ok. Qantas used to do JFK-LAX-SYD (maybe they still do, I don't know). That was not cabotage. And I don't believe this is either.:confused:

If you look into it, SunWing is now the parent company for Vacation Express. Makes sense to use the parent company's aircraft. VE's flights are charter flights, and don't fall under the same rules as a scheduled carrier.