Spirit Airlines, the second-busiest airline at BWI Marshall Airport, is rapidly ramping back up its flights, citing an increased demand from flyers after the coronavirus pandemic stifled demand for air travel in April and May.
As of June, it has resumed BWI Marshall flights to Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Fort Lauderdale, Houston, Jacksonville, Myrtle Beach, Chicago and Tampa.
As of July 1, Spirit will be back to operating 87% of the BWI Marshall service it was operating a year earlier. It will also resume BWI Marshall service to Austin, Nashville, Denver, Detroit, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New Orleans and San Juan.
It is an improvement compared to the month of May, where Spirit was operating only one flight from BWI Marshall, to Orlando, Florida.
Spirit, which moved its D.C.-area base from Reagan National Airport to BWI Marshall in 2012, accounts for about 10% of all flights during normal schedules at BWI.
BWI Marshall is the Washington region’s busiest airport, with four consecutive record years for passengers. Spirit flew about 2 million passengers from BWI Marshall last year.
All three Washington area airports are seeing a pickup in resumptions of flights, and nationally, TSA reports daily passenger screenings are now the highest they’ve been since bottoming out in late-March.
