Low-cost carrier at Charlotte airport adds popular tourist destination to its routes

Spirit Airlines is adding a direct route from Charlotte to New Orleans in the fall, the low-fare carrier confirmed Tuesday.

The nonstop service will start Oct. 10, according to Spirit. Nonstop service between Charlotte Douglas International Airport and Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport will be offered five times a week on Monday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Spirit has a small footprint at Charlotte Douglas along with other airlines such as Delta , Frontier , Jet Blue and Southwest . The Florida-based company makes up about 2% of flights at the airport.

Spirit started service at the Charlotte airport in 2019, with direct routes to Fort Lauderdale and Orlando, Florida,Newark, N.J., and Baltimore/Washington.

At the time, the airline’s vice president of network planning indicated Spirit would continue to expand in the state: “We’re very bullish on North Carolina,” The Charlotte Observer reported.

American Airlines accounts for about 87% of service at CLT. Charlotte Douglas is the second-largest hub for the Forth Worth, Texas-based company. In 2022, Kirby told the Observer that Spirit wasn’t trying to compete with American Airlines.

“They’re far and away the largest carrier with over 90% of the (Charlotte) market,” he said in 2019. “We’re just trying to offer an alternative.”

CLT is ranked as the seventh-busiest airport worldwide for arrivals and departures, according to the Airport Council International’s rankings for 2022.

Airlines adds flights from Charlotte

Spirit’s route to New Orleans is one of many new direct flight additions to CLT.

Frontier announced new nonstop flights going to Boston from Charlotte, starting this month.

Before Boston, Frontier started a new route from Charlotte Douglas to Miami in July. And direct routes to the Cincinnati region began in May.

The Denver-based company announced service to six U.S. cities and a Caribbean destination earlier this year: New York/LaGuardia; Houston-Bush; Dallas-Fort Worth; Chicago O’Hare; Baltimore-Washington; Buffalo, New York; and San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Low-cost carrier Contour Airlines is starting service from Charlotte to Altoona-Blair County Airport in Martinsburg, Pennsylvania. For passengers in the Charlotte region, the new route is another option for trips to Pennsylvania destinations. The airport is about 3 1/2 hours from Philadelphia and two hours from Pittsburgh or Harrisburg.

American Airlines is adding direct routes to Caribbean country St. Vincent and the Grenadines in December.

The Fort Worth, Texas-based company also began service to several Canadian destinations from Charlotte in the spring and summer. This includes Quebec City, Calgary and Vancouver.