Allegiant Announces New Flights from Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport

Aug. 11—Allegiant Air announced new service to airports in Sarasota- Bradenton and Punta Gorda on Tuesday.

The Las Vegas-based airline said it will begin service to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and Tulsa, Oklahoma, from Sarasota- Bradenton later this year. Cedar Rapids service will start Nov. 19 and flights to and from Tulsa will begin Dec. 15.

At Punta Gorda Airport, which was Allegiant's busiest destination during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the airline will start flights to Bentonville, Arkansas, Nov. 17. Flights to Austin, Texas, will start the next day.

All four flights will have a one-way introductory fare of $49.

Both Cedar Rapids and Tulsa are new routes for Sarasota- Bradenton. Adding these two destinations bumps the airport's total to 50.

"These two cities would be new markets for us that'll allow us to continue to diversify and add a more consistent year-round influx of visitation through these types of services," Elliott Falcione, executive director of the Bradenton Area Convention and Visitors Bureau, said.

The Sarasota area, including Manatee County, was named as No. 9 on U.S. News & World Report's list of the top places to live in the country about a month ago. That makes this a great time to leverage that status to new markets, Virginia Haley, president of Visit Sarasota County, said.

"That's a great way of introducing us to a market," she said. "We can't wait to welcome visitors from those two cities."

The Midwest in general has always been a strong market for the Sarasota- Bradenton area, airport president and CEO Rick Piccolo said. He said he's also glad that Allegiant, which is the largest carrier at the airport, has added a western destination in Tulsa.

The airport mostly flies to the Northeast, Midwest and Southeast but has added some western destinations, like Denver, in recent months.

This year has been an especially strong one, business-wise, for the Sarasota-Bradenton airport. Southwest Airlines joined in February with flights to four destinations and six months later that number is up to 19.

The airport has broken its own passenger traffic record several times this year, most recently in June, with 312,909 travelers. This comes during a time of record-breaking tourism for the Sarasota- Manatee area.

Allegiant is also behind the new Sunseeker Resort Charlotte Harbor, which was delayed by 18 months because of the pandemic. Allegiant plans to resume construction on the resort this month.

John Redmond, president of Allegiant, said at a press conference last week that the airline will likely fly 2 million people in and out of Punta Gorda alone by 2022.

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