Frontier Airlines says it will set up a permanent base of pilots, flight attendants and ground crew to serve a growing market at DFW Airport. Frontier now flies to 14 cities from DFW, including one international location in Cancun.
Frontier says it will add five additional non-stop destinations including a second international destination: Baltimore; Orange County, California; Raleigh-Durham; New York-LaGuardia and Montego Bay, Jamaica.
"Dallas-Fort Worth is growing considerably," says Frontier Chief Executive Barry Biffle. "You have a top-ten metro that's growing like [North Texas] is, they want low fares. Low fares stimulate traffic."
Biffle says the crew base will include 120 pilots, 220 flight attendants and 60 ground workers.
"We thought it was time to make a bigger investment in the form of a crew base," he says. "When we make an investment of a crew base, we're setting down roots here. We're saying, 'Hey, we're going to be here a long, long time, and we're going to invest in this community.'"
"These flights give North Texas travelers additional choice," says DFW Airport Executive Vice President for Global Strategies and Development John Ackerman.
Ackerman says DFW now flies to 264 destinations, the most of any airport in the United States. DFW trails only Hartsfield Airport in Atlanta for the total number of passengers served in the U.S.
"We already have one of the biggest route networks in the world," he says. "We're really proud of that, and these additional services from Frontier help further expand and give depth to our network."
Biffle says the crew base should open in May of 2023, and he says he expects the base to expand as demand for service grows at DFW Airport.
"This is really necessary because we have been growing considerably. We're the fastest growing carrier at DFW," he says. "We're up 300% since 2019."
The U.S. Census says the North Texas area added 97,000 people from July 2020 to July 2021, the largest increase of any metropolitan area in the country.
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