Frontier Airlines suspends flights
Frontier Airlines seems to be suspending flights from Pittsburgh International Airport just as fast as it started them.
The ultra low-fare carrier plans to end its daily service to Denver for the winter starting Jan. 4 — the third of the five flights launched by the airline last month to succumb to a “seasonal capacity adjustment.”
Frontier also will be discontinuing its flights to Atlanta and Chicago from Pittsburgh at the end of October for at least the winter as part of those adjustments.
Rich Oliver, a Frontier spokesman, said the Denver-based airline routinely redeploys its planes during the winter months to take advantage of the demand for travel from cold weather markets to warm weather ones. Pittsburgh, he noted, is not the only city affected.
“We fly a very seasonal route network. The nice thing with airplanes is that you can move them around to match demand,” he said.
Seasonal flights typically resume in late spring, he said. Asked if Frontier planned to continue the Denver flight in the spring, Mr. Oliver replied, “At this point, that is what we are being told.”
However, he added that the airline first will have to analyze the flight’s performance during the months it operated before making a final determination.
Frontier started service to Denver, Atlanta, Chicago, Las Vegas and Orlando the third week of June. The airline gave no indication at the time that any of them would be seasonal.
Bob Kerlik, a spokesman for the Allegheny County Airport Authority, which operates Pittsburgh International, said officials “were aware that their markets have the potential to be seasonal.”
“It’s not a Pittsburgh issue,” he added. “It’s part of their seasonal strategy. We’re working with them to bring back the service in the spring.”
Mr. Oliver said Pittsburgh is one of 11 airports that will lose service to Denver for the winter — LaGuardia in New York, Detroit, and Cleveland are among the others. Two other airlines, Southwest and United, fly nonstop to Denver from Pittsburgh.
Frontier also said earlier this month that the suspension of the Atlanta and Chicago flights — which currently operate four times and three times a week, respectively — represented seasonal adjustments, although a spokesman could not guarantee that they would return in the spring or summer. He said a determination would be made after the flights’ performances were reviewed.
Mr. Kerlik said all of the Frontier flights appear to be doing well in the early going. “All of our meetings with Frontier have been very positive. We’re optimistic about their future expansion here. This was a case of seasonal adjustments,” he said.