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Knutsford Express Services Limited, a luxury bus service popular among tourists and Jamaican commuters, faced rising costs as air travel slowed.
For the February third quarter, its profit was sliced in half, dropping to $49 million, even as revenue edged higher.
“Jamaica’s subdued passenger arrival numbers linger generally,” the company reported to shareholders.
Knutsford Express, led by founder and CEO Oliver Townsend, provides an alternative to Jamaica’s underfunded inter-parish bus system.
From January to March, air travel through Jamaica’s two major airports declined by five per cent to 1.76 million passengers, a count that includes both arrivals and departures. Montego Bay saw an eight per cent drop to 1.33 million passengers, while Kingston bucked the trend, rising nine per cent to 428,100 passengers, according to the Pacific Airport Group which operates both major airports.