Frontier Airlines is adding the Florida city of Sarasota to its route map as part of a broader 11-route expansion that also will return the carrier to Fort Lauderdale.
Frontier’s flights from Sarasota (airport code SRQ) begin Dec. 10, when the “ultra-low-cost carrier” begins twice-weekly seasonal service to Cleveland (CLE).
“This announcement brings the first nonstop service to CLE from SRQ in over a decade and we are confident that it will be a great success and look forward to future expansion possibilities with Frontier at SRQ,» Rick Piccolo, CEO of Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport, said to the Herald-Tribune of Sarasota.
Beyond the Sarasota-Cleveland service, Frontier announced 10 additional seasonal routes that beef up its presence at airports in Florida, Ohio and the Dominican Republic. Among airports getting the most new routes were West Palm Beach (four), Cleveland (three) and Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic (three).
Also added to Frontier’s winter schedule are routes to Fort Lauderdale from both Trenton, New Jersey, and Islip/Long Island, New York. Those routes shift service to Fort Lauderdale that Frontier operated to Miami last year. At the time, Frontier had ended its Fort Lauderdale service in favor of Miami. Now, Frontier will again be flying from both of South Florida’s two busiest airports.
Frontier also turned to New York LaGuardia for a winter-schedule update, announcing seasonal daily flights to Orlando that begin Nov. 15.
“With the addition of Sarasota to our network and 11 new routes, we continue to deliver on our mission to make travel more affordable across America,” Daniel Shurz, Frontier’s Senior Vice President of Commercial, said in a statement.
Frontier’s announcement is the latest in a flurry of new routes announced by the airline. Just last week, Frontier announced six new routes from Fort Myers, Florida, on Tuesday and followed that up a day later with 11 other new routes and an entirely new city (Tucson).
“With nearly 200 new planes on order, Frontier will continue to grow,” the company noted in its latest new-route announcement. However, the carrier also is known for quickly – and often quietly – pulling the plug on routes that don’t meet its expectations…
