In June, Denver-based Frontier Airlines (FRONT) opened a new hub and launched several new routes to the US territory of Puerto Rico.
Competitor JetBlue Airways (JBLU) It had also announced earlier in the year that it was seeing potential in travel to and from the island and would seriously increase its number of routes there.
Some of JetBlue's new routes include flights between Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport (SJU) in San Juan and Charlotte, Boston, Fort Lauderdale and Norfolk in Virginia. A few months later, Frontier followed up with a new flight within the Caribbean between San Juan and VC Bird International Airport (ANU) in Antigua and Barbuda.
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These routes are the victims of Frontier's latest cost cutting
That said, focusing so heavily on a single particular island is inherently risky. Last week, industry watchdog Ishrion Aviation revealed that the preliminary schedule Frontier released for spring 2025 includes cuts to flights between San Juan and Charlotte and Dallas Fort-Worth.
The short route, which Ishrion published in the BlueSKy social media platform and were later confirmed by the airline itself, also include more than 40 domestic route cuts between cities such as Dallas and Jacksonville, Omaha and St. Louis, as well as Frontier's operations center in Denver and Columbus, LaGuardia Airport in New York City. and Syracuse in the upper part of the state.
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Another city suffering a large number of cuts is Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL). In early spring, existing flights to the city from New York's Islip, Michigan's Grand Rapids, Minneapolis-St. Paul and New Orleans will withdraw with no return date announced.
While Frontier has not yet announced the exact dates when some of these flights will fly for the last time, the schedule the airline presented to airport authorities is between early 2025 and April.
Related: Frontier Airlines makes a big change that many travelers will like
This is what is happening with Frontier; Some cuts and new routes.
While the number of cuts announced this time is quite high, low-cost airlines tend to make larger changes to their networks when certain routes do not attract the necessary traffic.
Last month, Frontier also announced 16 new flights to mostly sunny destinations like Orlando, Miami and Austin-Bergstrom International Airport (AUS). Even with interest in the city declining in recent years, Frontier has committed to starting new flights there from Chicago, Orlando, Cincinnati and Phoenix in March 2025.
As part of the latest restructuring, it is focusing on larger cities in warmer states rather than smaller destinations where increases in travelers are seen. Some more new flights announced in November include flights to Tampa International Airport (TPA) from Houston, Indianapolis and Milwaukee.
“One of the biggest challenges many low- and ultra-low-cost airlines faced in 2023 was industry overcapacity in leisure markets, with Las Vegas and Orlando being two significant examples,” said Frontier CEO Barry Biffle, to investors when a similar conference was held. The round of cuts was announced last February. “Both markets have seen rapid and disproportionate growth compared to 2019, when demand and capacity were much more balanced.”
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