The airline also revealed that one of its planes will be decorated with the Puerto Rican parrot.

Frontier Airlines will launch a daily flight between San Juan and Tampa in June, thus strengthening its presence at the Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport (SJU), from where it will now operate a total of 11 air routes to destinations in the Caribbean and the United States.

Frontier’s International Sales Manager, Alfredo Gonzalez, specified that the inaugural flight will be on June 23 and that the new air route will not operate for a season, but for the whole year.

To celebrate the premiere, Frontier launched an offer in which tickets can be purchased from $99 each way.

“This flight (from Tampa to San Juan) is not just a flight, as it connects people, families and businesses. This connects communities that need to be communicated”, said González at a press conference.

The director of the Puerto Rico Tourism Company (PRTC), Carlos Mercado Santiago, celebrated that Puerto Rico will have 75,000 new seats available along the route, whose economic impact is estimated at over $39 million.

“We thank Frontier for believing in our country as a viable destination and we hope that the combination with our friends from Discover Puerto Rico will have a good effect and that those flights will be full,” said the official.

For his part, the main Strategies officer of Discover Puerto Rico, Edward Zayas, highlighted that the organization’s new campaign, called “Live Boricua”, will serve to boost air traffic to the island.

A parrot on the plane
The airline based in Denver, Colorado, took the opportunity to present the tail of one of its new Airbus A320 aircraft -with capacity for 186 passengers- that bears an image of the Puerto Rican parrot.

“This plane (named) Juan started flying three weeks ago and I’m dying of excitement to bring it to his land (Puerto Rico),” González said. “We want people to realize that we have to protect endangered animals.”

This will be the second plane to be decorated with a Puerto Rican animal, since in March the Puerto Rican coquí won a company contest that sought to choose the endangered animal from the Caribbean and Central American region that will appear on the tail of one of its new Airbus model aircraft.

Frontier began operating in Puerto Rico in June 2017. Since then, it has expanded its presence in both San Juan and Aguadilla. In the latter municipality, a direct flight between the Orlando International Airport (MCO) and the Rafael Hernández International Airport in Aguadilla (BQN) was recently launched.

Meanwhile, in February a new air route began between San Juan and the cities of Boston, Massachusetts, and Hartford, Connecticut.