FLOW Jamaica’s business is recovering faster than anticipated from the impact of Hurricane Melissa, with the company aiming to restore fixed home connections by the end of 2026.

“For Jamaica, a solid mobile performance continues to support the business while an increase in the anticipated pace of reconnections should bring us closer to pre-hurricane levels on fixed [lines] before year end,” said Liberty Latin America Limited (LILA) CEO Balan Nair on Thursday’s earnings call.

Flow Jamaica, registered as Cable & Wireless Jamaica Limited, lost an estimated one third or 112,000 fixed revenue-generating customers in the fourth quarter after the hurricane. During the company’s first quarter ending March 31 the company restored 30,000 customers and is back to 263,000 customers.

As other parts of western Jamaica get back electricity and road access, Flow Jamaica will be accelerating plans to reconnect homes, with a key focus being St James in the coming weeks. This is on top of the business-to-business (B2B) segment recovering along with data usage increasing after network and spectrum investments.

“Our mobile business performed well post-hurricane. On the other hand, while the restoration of the fixed network is taking some time, we see a quicker recovery than we had previously anticipated,” Nair added on the recovery efforts.

LILA’s revenue in Jamaica was down two per cent, or US$2.1 million ($329.19 million), to US$103.2 million for the first quarter. However, it was an improvement to the US$91 million reported in the fourth quarter and US$107.8 million in the third quarter.

LILA previously reported that Hurricane Melissa had a US$20-million impact to revenue in Q4 and a US$56-million impairment on property and equipment for its Jamaican business. Flow is now undertaking a massive rebuild of western Jamaica which is being supported by a US$81-million payment from weather derivatives, a form of accelerated insurance payment.

“However, as power has come back to the island and following our updated network mapping, we are now increasingly optimistic in being able to reconnect a healthy number of these customers in 2026,” Nair explained on the Jamaican outlook.

Liberty Caribbean’s segment revenue and OIBDA (operating income before depreciation and amortisation) was down US$12 million due to the impact of the hurricane. That included a US$8-million impact to fixed customer revenue and a US$4-million impact to B2B fixed revenue. Despite that impact, the segment reported US$355 million in revenue and US$163 million in OIBDA.

“The drivers include the speed of homes being reconnected to the residential fixed business and ongoing strength in mobile, building from our performance through the hurricane where our direct-to-cell connectivity helped grow affinity with customers on the island,” Nair added.

Apart from its ongoing capital expenditure plans, LILA is expanding its partnerships to improve services to its customers. It signed a five-year strategic collaboration agreement with Amazon Web Services in February to accelerate cloud transformation and artificial intelligence adoption across Latin America and the Caribbean. Now, the company has signed an agreement with Starlink to offer direct-to-cell service in Costa Rica. Starlink was used to connect more than 140,000 users in hard-hit areas after the hurricane in Jamaica.

“It will allow both consumers and corporate clients to connect to data that delivers voice, video, and messaging through apps as well as text messaging from places where mobile coverage does not currently exist, such as rural, mountainous or maritime areas and even national parks,” Nair explained on the Costa Rica deal.