[William Hogarth]

As you will all be aware Hurricane Irma is a CAT 5 Hurricane and is currently raging through the Caribbean with its current path expected to reach Florida by the weekend.

All pilots should take extra care when operating flights in the Florida and Caribbean area between September 6th through September 13th.

Extra fuel should be uplifted to enable diversion or a return to departure airport. Pilots should be monitoring airport METAR and ATIS advisories closely before and during flights.

The following airports in Florida, USA could be effected: 
Orlando Intl - MCO/KMCO
Tampa - TPA/KTPA
Palm Beach - PBI/KPBI
Fort Lauderdale - FLL/KFLL
Key West - EYW/KEYW

Hub managers will be approving the extra fuel carried and any diversions should be detailed in the PIREP comments. The main website homepage also shows any airports currently effected by delays due to weather so please also use this when planning.

We would like to send our prayers and best wishes to all of our Pilots and their families who maybe caught up in this Hurricane over the next few days.

As always please consider donating to the many charirties who will be helping with the aftermath of this Hurricane.   

[William Hogarth]

Now that Irma has passed by, our Operations in Florida & the Caribbean will start to return to normal.

Airport operations at:

Fort Lauderdale
Tampa
Orlando
Jacksonville
Palm Beach

Have restarted today (12th September)

Operations at Key West remain suspended until the 15th.

Pilots should continue to exercise caution when operating to airports in the Caribbean due to the wide spread damage. The islands of St Maarten & St Thomas  remain closed for the time being.

Pilots are still permitted to load extra fuel when operating around the Caribbean.

As previously communicated we encourage pilots to donate any spare change to the relief effort and as with Hurricane Harvey we are now activating all flights from Fort Lauderdale to the Caribbean as relief flights.

In addition all flights from Mainland USA to Orlando, Tampa, Jacksonville & Fort Lauderdale will be loading extra cargo and will also be relief flights.

[Aharon Dayan]

The island of St Maarten remain closed for the time being.

UNless I am mistaken, I believe TNCM is open ONLY for relief aid supplying flights which means Metro Air pilots are permitted to use Metro Air planes to fly in lots of supplies from KFLL and KBOS.  I heard that lots of cargo planes are still flying to TNCM.

Regards,

Aharon

[William Hogarth]

Service at St Maarten is only open for Military relief flights at the moment. The airports condition and surroundings are not yet safe for commercial passengers. While some airlines may choose to send aircraft to St Maarten, MetroAir has temporarily suspended service until such a time that we feel the airport is safe.

All other US Carriers have done the same based on security and general condition of the airport. Service to St Thomas however is now available for relief flights. Pirep NOTAM's have been issued for this route.