United Airlines to resume nonstop Florida-Cleveland flights

United Airlines recently announced it will be resuming its nonstop service to two cities in Florida from Cleveland during the winter schedule. The airline had stopped flying to these cities last year.

Media reports said that United Airlines will start operating seasonal nonstop flights from Cleveland to Fort Lauderdale and Fort Myers in late October 2015. The airline will also be adding a second daily nonstop service to Orlando from Cleveland Hopkins International Airport in March 2016.

The reports quoted travel experts as saying that United Airlines is trying to enter into a highly competitive market. Spirit Airlines had this year already launched flights to eight popular leisure destinations, and is further planning to begin nonstop flights to Tampa, Fort Myers and Orlando in January 2016. The airline will also start serving Las Vegas, Dallas/Fort Worth and Fort Lauderdale in February next year as well.

United Airlines will not be only facing competition from Spirit Airlines, but will also have to battle it out with JetBlue Airways and Frontier Airlines too. According to the reports, JetBlue Airways will launch nonstop flights to Fort Lauderdale from Cleveland next April.  Another leading low-cost carrier Frontier Airlines is presently offering daily nonstop flights to Tampa and Fort Myers and two daily nonstop flights to Orlando. The airline said that it will be deploying a new 230-seat Airbus A321 aircraft to serve Orlando effective from November 4 next year.

Travel experts said that the way in which United Airlines ended its flights to Fort Myers and Fort Lauderdale from Cleveland in April 2014, and its decision to resume its nonstop services to the two cities is quite surprising though. The end of service last April seemed as though the airline would be permanently stopping its nonstop flights to these cities. The airline, while ending the service, had also said that the two routes were not proving to be financially viable and failed to meet its expectations. United Airlines’ decision to resume the nonstop flights to these destinations from Cleveland has however been welcomed.