With its business model built on offering customers rock-bottom prices and then making up for the difference with add-on fees for things like baggage and seat selection, Spirit Airlines (SAVE) -) is a particularly popular choice for those looking for a quick getaway to a nearby city.
While it also has highly popular routes to tropical destinations like Mexico and the Dominican Republic, Spirit closed off 2023 by significantly amping up its domestic coverage. Over the last few months, the airline added new routes between Miami and Minneapolis as well as expanded its coverage out of Newark and Boston.
Related: I just flew Spirit for the first time ever — here’s what it was like
Given Florida's growing population and the number of travelers going to the state in search of sun during the winter months, Spirit's single most popular route in January 2024 will be between Fort Lauderdale and Atlanta's Hartsfield Jackson International Airport.
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Here is why this short Spirit route to Florida is so popular
According to Cirium data first reported by aviation website Simple Flying, Spirit has 294 flights between the two cities scheduled for the month — 147 flights in each direction and nearly 59,000 seats that it expects to fly in total. This is on top of the route also being served by competing airlines such as Frontier Airlines (FRON) -), JetBlue Airways (JBLU) -) and Southwest (LUV) -).
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A similar route between Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport and Newark is just two flights behind as the airline's most popular. In January, the airline plans to fly 147 between Fort Lauderdale and Newark and 145 in the other direction for 292 flights total.
The route between Newark and Orlando International Airport is scheduled to be Spirit's third most popular with 280 flights scheduled between the two cities for January.
Why so many airlines have their 2024 sights set on Florida
Other routes for which Spirit expects to fly more than 200 flights this month include one between Orlando and Puerto Rico's Luis Muñoz Marin International Airport, one between Fort Lauderdale and New York's LaGuardia Airport and one between LaGuardia and Detroit's Metropolitan Wayne County Airport. With 234 flights scheduled for January, this is the airline's most popular flight that is not to a tropical destination.
While Spirit is based in Miramar, Fla., and has always had a significant Florida presence, competing low-cost airlines have recently been looking to tap into the rush of people looking to go between Florida and other U.S. cities (Florida's population grew by nearly 500,000 between the end of 2021 and 2022.)
Utah-based Breeze Airways added 11 new routes from different destinations to Fort Myers back in July while Denver-based Frontier followed by announcing its own spurt of new routes to the city on the Gulf Coast in September.
"With fall and winter quickly approaching, we know many people from the Northeast and Midwest will be looking to travel to the great beaches and warmer weather Fort Myers has to offer," Breeze CEO David Neeleman said of the expansion.
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