a scheduled flight is not successful, it was revealed yesterday.

Tourism Minister David Dodwell said negotiations were still going on with American Airlines to set up a flight from Florida's most southern city.

He said: "It's something we want and something which American Airlines have said they will do, but they are not pinning down the date. I had hoped it would be this year, but it was not to be.'' But Mr. Dodwell said: "A charter is something we would look at if we couldn't get a scheduled airline. We would definitely consider a chartered airline from Miami.

"We would always consider a charter out of a city which would be important to us.'' Mr. Dodwell said research showed a massive potential market stretching from the south-western corner of the US to South America from a Miami link. And he predicted Bermudians travelling to Florida and the Caribbean would take advantage of the service as well.

Mr. Dodwell said: "If I could pick a flight which would have as close to instant success as you could possibly get, that would be it. It's strong -- the research shows us that a 65 percent load could be achieved out there without any marketing at all.'' Any flights from Miami could tap into the South American market as the city's airport gets 50 flights a day from the sub-region.

Texas -- including oil-rich Houston and Dallas -- as well as Louisana also feed into Miami.

And Mr. Dodwell said research showed that interest in Bermuda had also been building in Louisiana, Florida itself, South Carolina and Georgia.

He did not rule out some form of revenue guarantee to any scheduled airline operating out of Miami, set up in partnership with the private sector.

Mr. Dodwell declined to comment on what sort of capacity might be guaranteed -- but it understood a common industry figure is 65 percent capacity on every flight. A charter service to Bermuda -- operated by Conquest from the gateway city of Toronto -- has been given permission to operate in tandem with the Air Canada service over the winter months, traditionally a strong period for Canadian visitors. A revenue guarantee was granted on the ill-fated Condor flights out of Frankfurt, Germany, serving Bermuda and the Dominican Republic.

But Condor -- a charter subsidiary of national carrier Lufthansa -- ceased flying to the Island in October last year due to lack of business. Mr. Dodwell said: "It wasn't successful -- but the concept of one we should be exploring.''