Recent weeks brought several air service announcements to the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport (MSY). After a record setting year in 2016, the Airport is very excited to continue the upward growth with flights to new destinations and additional flight frequencies to existing non-stop destinations.
Recent air service announcements for late 2017 and early 2018 include:
· Alaska Airlines operated by Virgin America began daily service to San Francisco International Airport (SFO) on September 21, 2017. This is the second destination served by Alaska Airlines from New Orleans.
· Frontier Airlines recently announced service to four cities from MSY set to begin in October 2017 including two new destinations with Islip (ISP) and Providence (PVD) plus two existing destinations with San Antonio (SAT) and Austin (AUS). With the addition of these four flights, Frontier Airlines serves a total of seven destinations from New Orleans.
· British Airways is increasing its number of weekly flights to London-Heathrow (LHR) to five frequencies on October 30, 2017. At the press conference for the inaugural flight, British Airways’ representative noted that the additional frequency is because of the airline’s confidence in the New Orleans market.
· Ultra-low cost carrier Spirit Airlines recently announced that it would be adding daily service from MSY to Boston (BOS), Tampa (TPA), Newark (EWR), and four times weekly service to Minneapolis-St. Paul (MSP) on November 9, 2017. In May, Spirit launched new daily service to Baltimore (BWI), Cleveland (CLE), and Orlando (MCO). Spirit Airlines will serve a total of 15 non-stop destinations from Armstrong International with these latest additions.
· The second largest carrier serving New Orleans, Delta Air Lines, will begin twice weekly service to Seattle (SEA) and Boston (BOS) in February 2018. Delta will serve a total of 10 nonstop destinations from New Orleans with the addition of these routes.
· And most recently the Airport’s largest carrier, Southwest Airlines, announced two new non-stop destinations, Sacramento (SMF) and San Jose (SJC), as well as its very first international flight from New Orleans to Cancun (CUN), all scheduled to begin with one weekly frequency Spring 2018. Earlier this year, Southwest Airlines launched seasonal service to Columbus, OH (CMH), Indianapolis (IND), Pittsburgh (PIT), and Raleigh-Durham, NC (RDU), and these routes will continue in 2018 due to their success. Nine other destinations served by Southwest are also performing well enough to see increased weekly frequency starting in March 2018 (Atlanta-ATL, Austin-AUS, Las Vegas-LAS, Kansas City-MCI, Chicago-MDW, Phoenix-PHX, St. Louis-STL, Dallas-DAL, Orlando-MCO). With these latest announcements, Southwest will serve 27 non-stop destinations from New Orleans.
