TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums British Virgin Islands Flight Montreal Beef Island

Hello everyone! Lately there's been a lot of negative feedback regarding flights, especially those from San Juan to Beef Isand. So I would like to give you our experience today. We arrived in the BVI without problem. We used American Airline and Silver. The flight to Charlotte departed 15 minutes late from Montreal, which is normal given the mess in Canadian airports, but it arrived on time. The flight from Charlotte to San Juan was impeccable, as was that from Silver to Beef Island. Cheers!

Good news for a change!

That's good news! We flew down 2 weeks ago and back this week and everything was seamless.

Cape Air who is my personal favorite seems to be struggling at the moment. The others seem to be doing a bit better.

We fly with at least 3 checked bags and this is the first year we’ve had an issue with Silver - the plane was overweight and the bags had to come later. Thank goodness it was on the way home.

I am about to book flights for next year and they are cheaper flying into EIS, which is our presence. I’m just worried about our bags not making it. When flying from SJU to EIS, is there any way to estimate the probability of the Silver plane having a weight issue? Has anything changed that makes this more probable?

The Saab 340 used by Silver should have about 9000lbs of payload available with a 1000 lb fuel load. Should allow for 50 bags at 40lbs each to be checked per flight with 34 passengers give or take a bit.

Thank you George! I interpret this as pretty good odds since a decent percentage will just have a carry on. Do you agree?

I would think so but they left our bags last fall. It appears the issue is more common outbound. Could be the runway length reduces payload however they can go at max weight off 4200 feet at 59F. Runway is 4600 feet if I recall. It could also they have cargo that they prioritize over baggage.

Want to know what flight we're on? We have tickets on American/Silver with an allowance of four, 70 lb. checked bags, plus carry-ons, for two of us. Most people won't do that, but those of us with houses, boats and cars do have stuff to bring. One advantage of Silver is they can carry more baggage than Cape Air. We have had bags miss the SJU-EIS flight, but they usually arrive the following day.

With a boat in the BVI we are always bringing something - after our last debacle in and out of EIS I decided to just fly into STT and take a water taxi. 3 bags per person on Delta and no issues with Island Time make me a very happy traveler.

Apple AirTags hidden in checked bags can help you identify when a bag is not loaded on your flight, and where it is.
I put Airtags on all kinds of devices, including shipping containers for my business, and valuable packages shipped by common carriers.
Here is a recent article about how an airtag helped the writer save his ski trip

Great tip, Carp! Thanks for posting.

This has been a very helpful thread. Thank you everyone!