It’s no secret that Puerto Rico is in the midst of a full-fledged airlift boom, and now the island will soon be getting more new daily nonstop flights, Caribbean Journal has learned.
Low-cost carrier Spirit Airlines, which kicked off a broad expansion of its service to Puerto Rico in the fall, is planning to add another daily nonstop flight to Puerto Rico out of Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport.
Beginning May 21, Spirit will double its flight service from Baltimore to Luis Muñoz Marin International Airport in Puerto Rico’s capital of San Juan.
That will mean two daily flights between Baltimore and Puerto Rico.
In a statement, Spirit said the move is “in recognition of the route’s exceptionally strong performance.”
It also comes less than a year after Spirit first launched its route from Baltimore to San Juan.
“Baltimore Washington International Airport (BWI) is a key component of the Spirit’s route network,” Spirit Airlines Vice President of Network Planning John Kirby said.
The planned expansion only reinforces what is already one of the strongest Puerto Rico flight networks of any carrier.
And it also continues Puerto Rico’s continued momentum in attracting new airlift, with a host of major carriers expanding their routes to the island, from travel giants like Delta Air Lines to upstarts like Frontier Airlines.
Puerto Rico’s tourism sector has largely recovered from last month’s earthquakes (a sentiment echoed by Discover Puerto Rico CEO Brad Dean writing in Caribbean Journal) which were largely concentrated in areas like Ponce that are not traditionally the island’s travel hubs (at least not yet)
It all adds up to what is a very positive trend for Puerto Rico — air carriers do their homework when they launch new routes, and continued bets like these by leading air carriers means they see strength (and demand) in Puerto Rico’s tourism sector.
Now, it’s on Puerto Rico’s hotel developers to make sure there is hotel stock to meet the rising demand.