The first Contour Airline flights from Macon’s Middle Georgia Regional Airport will take to the skies Tuesday, offering the first flight for locals to take a chance to head down south, or for some to take a trip to Macon.

According to the Middle Georgia Regional Airport’s flight schedule, a flight from Macon to Fort Lauderdale in Florida will take off at 9:40 a.m. on Tuesday, June 9.

This new flight is with Contour Airlines, which announced back in April plans for a flight to go from Macon to Fort Lauderdale starting in June. They also announced plans for a Macon to Baltimore flight.

The airport’s Director of Aviation, Doug Faour, previously told 13WMAZ that these flights will make a big impact for the airport and the Central Georgia community.

“Attract more operations here, potentially more economic growth, more businesses that could operate out of here on a larger scale,” Faour said.

The flight comes after Spirit Airlines pulled the plug on a flight to Fort Lauderdale after declaring bankruptcy and just a few months before the airline closed for good.

While Countour Airlines has new flights taking off from Macon, they did cancel one: the flight to Washington-Dulles. Instead, the airline swapped flights to the DC metro area to Baltimore’s Thurgood Marshall airport.

Still, the airport as a whole is expanding, as it recently received an Airport Infrastructure Grant. The $2.6 million grant will help the airport expand its runway by 600 feet.

“This project was identified over 40 years ago, as a need for the airport,” Faour said. “To see how much progress has been made and how close we are is very exciting.”

This expansion, according to Faour, gives them an option to add more flights in the future.

“The capabilities that the airport has now have increased, thus allowing us to attract more of the market,” Faour said.

The first flight from the Middle Georgia Regional Airport will land sometime around 11:25 a.m., according to the website. Meanwhile, the flight from Fort Lauderdale to Macon will take off at 12 p.m. and arrive in Central Georgia at 1:45 p.m.

Tickets can be purchased on the Contour Airline’s website.