New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Spirit Airlines to launch route from Bradley to San Juan
WINDSOR LOCKS — Spirit Airlines announced Wednesday that it would start nonstop flights on June 7 from Bradley International Airport to San Juan, Puerto Rico — the latest of several routes to destinations outside the mainland U.S. to be announced or launched in the past year at Connecticut's flagship airport.
The new route to Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport will operate year-round on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Flights are on sale, starting at $74 for one-way tickets.
Spirit's flights will complement Frontier Airlines' and JetBlue's routes from Bradley to San Juan, the capital of Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory with a population of about 3.2 million people.
“We are thrilled to congratulate Spirit Airlines on their expansion in Puerto Rico and appreciate the airline's inclusion of Bradley International Airport in its growth,” Kevin Dillon, executive director of the Connecticut Airport Authority, which owns and operates Bradley, said in a written statement. “Spirit Airlines has been an important partner and key to our route network development strategy. The addition of new nonstop service to San Juan gives our passengers more opportunities to travel affordably.”
For Spirit, the service to San Juan will follow its launch in December of Bradley's first route to Montego Bay, Jamaica. In addition to the San Juan and Montego Bay routes, Spirit operates nonstop flights from Bradley to Fort Myers, Fla.; Myrtle Beach, S.C.; Orlando, Fla., and Tampa, Fla.
“We strive to provide our Hartford guests with convenient and affordable access to great destinations,” John Kirby, Spirit's vice president of network planning at Spirit Airlines, said in a statement. “We recently launched our Montego Bay route, and we're excited to add another fun Caribbean route to San Juan.”
In addition to the routes to Montego Bay and San Juan, there are nonstop flights from Bradley to destinations outside the mainland U.S. through Air Canada's route to Toronto, which relaunched last June; and Delta Air Lines, Frontier and JetBlue routes to Cancun, Mexico. Bradley will be further boosted with the resumption next month of Aer Lingus flights to Dublin.
At the same time, the airport continues to expand its mainland service. On Tuesday, Breeze Airways announced that it would launch in May nonstop flights from Bradley to Fort Myers, New Orleans and Tampa, and one-stop flights to Los Angeles.
The new routes have supported Bradley's recovery from the sharp decline in air travel in 2020, during the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic. About 5.8 million passengers passed through Bradley in 2022, up about 25 percent from 2021, but still down 14 percent from 2019.