The wave of new leisure travel offerings at Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport continues after Spirit Airlines announced flights to five new destinations on Thursday.
Starting Nov. 17, Spirit Airlines will offer nonstop flights from Milwaukee to Fort Lauderdale, Fort Myers, Phoenix and Tampa. The air carrier will also offer flights to Cancun three times per week starting Dec. 23.
Spirit became Milwaukee Mitchell’s eighth passenger carrier in February and launched its first flights from Milwaukee on Thursday. The air carrier now offers flights from Milwaukee to Orlando, Las Vegas and Los Angeles.
“When you think about where we were a year ago, it’s hard to imagine that we would be introducing a new airline here at MKE, let alone one that’s expanding so quickly,” said Brian Dranzik Milwaukee County airport director.
Passenger traffic at Mitchell International fell 61.9% in 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, to 2.6 million passengers, down from nearly 6.9 million passengers in 2019.
Mitchell International had 334,791 passengers in April, according to the airport’s most recent monthly data. Those numbers are still down about 250,000 passengers from April in 2019, but up by about 321,000 passengers from April 2020.
Spirit was the first of three major air carriers to join Milwaukee Mitchell this year. The others are Jet Blue and Sun Country, which announced new flights from Milwaukee in April. Other airlines that already serve Milwaukee – including Southwest, United and American – announced plans for new Milwaukee routes or an expansion of flights for existing routes earlier this year.
There are now ten passenger airlines serving Milwaukee Mitchell’s International Airport. The others are Air Canada, Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, Delta Airlines, Frontier Airlines, Southwest Airlines, United Airlines, Jet Blue and Sun Country.
