US Airways will start a direct flight from Bermuda to Fort Lauderdale, Florida from June 7, Transport Minister Ewart Brown announced last night.

The weekly flight, the first non-stop flight from Bermuda to South Florida, will run every Saturday through September 27.

"We are confident that direct Florida service will prove to be highly successful and quickly able to stand on its own as a profitable daily route," Dr. Brown told the House of Assembly.

"Today, in this centennial year of man's first airplane flight 600 miles west of here in North Carolina in December, 1903, and exactly 75 years after Governor (of Bermuda Louis) Bols' historic address to this House (proposing a comprehensive plan to develop aviation in Bermuda), this Government is taking far-sighted and lasting measures which will have positive effects on Bermuda's aviation interests," said Dr. Brown.

Dr. Brown said part of the Ministry's air service development strategy included offering incentives to attract new airline service to cities where Bermuda presently has no direct service, therefore expanding the tourist base into Bermuda.

Those incentives will be different in every case, he said.

However they could for example include ideas such as reducing airport fees to a new city, or bringing the business community in to help cover airline costs.

"We're all in this together," he told The Royal Gazette when asked about the partnering with the business community, who would be among the beneficiaries of increased flights to Bermuda. "There's a general across the board agreement we have to do something different."

When asked for an example of what the business community could do to offer airlines incentive to come to Bermuda, Dr. Brown used the example (not relating to the new US Airways service) of a flight crew which has to stay overnight on the Island.

"You have a crew of five doing a daily flight to Bermuda that have to stay overnight, you're looking at 365 nights a year at Bermuda's rates," he said. "That's a lot of money."

If the business community chips in toward that cost, however, that provides an added incentive for an airline to start such a service to Bermuda. "We're all going to chip in and make this a success."

The combined effects of the incentive packages in the specific case of the US Airways flight to Fort Lauderdale will result in the Ministry guaranteeing the occupation of about 60 seats onboard, he said.

"Such sharing of risk with airlines willing to offer new service to Bermuda, for a limited introductory period while the new route proves itself, makes sense for Bermuda tourism and business, and the airline willing to partner with Bermuda in such joint ventures."

That introductory period should last at least until September deal, said Dr. Brown. "If things go well we may not need it (after that)," he added.

Along with a new US Airways service from Bermuda to Boston starting in May of this year, the US Airways service to Fort Lauderdale prompted Dr. Brown to tell the House: "I conclude my remarks by predicting that history will record that today marks the advent of a promising new era for Bermuda aviation," he said. "Pioneering not with 150 mph flying boats as in days of yore, but with 500 mph jetliners, expanding our horizons to new markets, to re-introduce Bermuda's attractions to a new generation of tourists.

"Today our renaissance of airline service to Bermuda begins."