More Canadian tourists expected to visit Florida’s Space Coast with a new route expansion by Porter Airlines: Coming as it did in the wake of Hurricane Irma, the announcement by the Toronto-based regional carrier Porter Airlines that it would expand its route network to include a new flight from the Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport to Melbourne International Airport (it is about 60 miles southeast of Orlando) provided a special boost to Florida Space Coast.
The new flights by the Toronto, Canada-based Porter will likely mean thousands of more Canadian tourists visiting the Space Coast during the seasonal travel season which runs this Dec. 16 through March 31, 2018. The Toronto flights to Melbourne will continue through April 7, 2018. The carrier also announced Porter Airlines announced it is going to offer non-stop flights to Orlando from both Windsor and Ottawa on a seasonal basis, starting this December.
Enormously popular among Canadians and Brits because much of it runs along the Atlantic Ocean and is home to the Kennedy Space Center—one of the most visited attractions in Florida—and because of its lower hotel room rates, the Space Coast is also home to Cocoa Beach and its surfer-and-beach community.
The expanded offering by Porter comes as the airport is near completing the first phase of a major terminal renovation which includes improvements to process international travelers through customs more efficiently. Also, completion of a new airport tower is expected next March.
Mexican low-cost carrier Volaris added a second route to San Antonio when it began a daily service from Mexico City Sept, 15. The link from the Mexican capital adds to Volaris’ existing route from Guadalajara to the San Antonio. The new route will be operated on the carrier’s fleet of A320s, with it joining Interjet (12 times weekly) and Aeromexico (daily) on the airport pair. With this launch, Volaris now serves eight destinations in the U.S. from Mexico City, with this route to San Antonio being its only one in Texas. Volaris does serve Austin, Dallas/Fort Worth and Houston Intercontinental in Texas, albeit from Guadalajara. Volaris, which was established in 2007 and began its first flights to the U.S. in 2009, now serves more than 20 U.S. cities from locations in Mexico and has become a major carrier between the two countries
Norwegian’s UK Subsidiary gets permit to operate flights across the Atlantic between the UK, Europe and the U.S. On Sept. 23, Norwegian UK, the low-cost British subsidiary of Norwegian airlines (NUK) was granted a foreign air carrier permit by the U.S. Department of Transportation. The action came after the carrier was given “tentative approval” in July. Norwegian UK was set up in 2015 to enable Norwegian to grow its long-haul routes by accessing bilateral traffic rights to a series of global markets. The carrier said its American foreign carrier permit now would allow Norwegian UK “to establish a seamless operation and more effectively utilize its long-haul fleet.”
