Frontier Airlines is steadily adding destinations from Trenton Mercer County Airport. The number of nonstop cities from the New Jersey airport rose to 17 with the addition of nonstop service to Milwaukee, Wis. Minneapolis and St. Louis, Mo. beginning on June 13.
This follows earlier announcements of service to Cleveland, Cincinnati , Charlotte and St. Augustine. The airline typically offers service a few times a week to each destination.
“It’s great to be expanding our service again from Trenton-Mercer Airport where we’ll now serve 17 different destinations,” said Daniel Shurz, senior vice president, commercial. “Now customers can enjoy ultra-low fares and choice when they fly to the Twin Cities, the Gateway city, and the largest city in the state of Wisconsin.”
Frontier has been flying out of Trenton since 2012. It added Wilmington/New Castle (ILG) as in July 2013. Frontier now has nonstop service from Delaware to Chicago, Denver, Fort Myers, Orlando and Tampa. In May, Atlanta and Detroit will be added.
Frontier has targeted low-cost airport outside Philadelphia in an effort to gain a piece of the Delaware Valley market, and to a limited extent the outer reaches of the New York metro market from Trenton.
The rapid expansion from Trenton is not being matched by New Castle, but no one is panicking. “We are pleased with the progress by Frontier at ILG. We are working very closely with Frontier to insure we meet their needs and the needs of their customers,” said Scott Green, executive director of the Delaware River and Bay Authority, manager of the airport.
“We see that traffic to all the cities is strong, especially the Florida cities,” Green says. “We hear that early indications are that the flights to Atlanta and Detroit, to be added this spring, will also be popular.”
Green points out that the authority did not seek out Frontier. “We didn’t have to beg them to come here. We believe that kind of organic growth is stable and sustainable. As people get used to the two and three time per week schedule that Frontier tends to fly, rather than a daily schedule, we think the numbers will grow,”
According to Green, many of the markets served from Trenton stem from demand from businesses in the community.
“We think some markets would be very popular with businesses in our area. Those businesses need to demonstrate that same demand here,” Green says.
“In sum, it has been less than a year since Frontier first announced service at ILG. We’re still in the early days, but we see a very bright future.”
