Spirit Airlines will resume flights from Arnold Palmer Regional Airport to Orlando, Fla., on Sept. 10, reversing a decision to halt service to the airport\u2019s most popular destination.<\/p>\n
The discount carrier previously announced it would indefinitely suspend the route in favor of seasonal flights to Myrtle Beach, S.C.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not sure of the exact dates, but Spirit just told us Orlando is scheduled to come back,\u201d said Gabe Monzo, the outgoing executive director of the Westmoreland County Airport Authority.<\/p>\n
Spirit spokesman Thomas Fletcher confirmed that the Orlando flights will operate four times a week beginning Sept. 10. Outbound flights are scheduled daily from Thursday through Monday, Fletcher said.<\/p>\n
The restoration will follow a five-month hiatus, marking a period of significant transition for the Unity airport. Spirit, the facility\u2019s lone commercial carrier, is scheduled to make its final flight \u2014 for now \u2014 from Westmoreland County to Orlando early Tuesday evening.<\/p>\n
On Friday, the airline will begin seasonal service to Myrtle Beach, which will operate five times a week through the fall.<\/p>\n
The Orlando route has long been the centerpiece of operations for the Latrobe-area airport. In recent years, Spirit has operated daily flights to Orlando along with seasonal service to other Florida cities, including Fort Lauderdale, Tampa and Fort Myers.<\/p>\n
Orlando has been the only destination served from the airport since November. The temporary suspension of the route intensified efforts by local officials to recruit a second carrier, particularly as Spirit continues to scale back operations while working to emerge from its second bankruptcy.<\/p>\n
Monzo, who is slated to retire at the end of April, said last month that talks were ongoing with multiple prospective airlines and suggested a deal was within reach. However, he noted late last week that those negotiations have stalled because of
\nindustry-wide factors, such as rising fuel costs.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s been no further movement as far as that is concerned,\u201d Monzo said regarding a potential deal with new commercial carriers.<\/p>\n
The uncertainty comes as passenger traffic at the airport hit its lowest level since Spirit arrived in 2011. The airport reported just 119,379 passengers in 2025, a sharp decline from the record high of 355,000 in 2015 and the 243,000 travelers recorded as recently as 2022.<\/p>\n
Despite the fluctuations in service, a $22 million project to double the size of the passenger terminal remains on schedule to open in mid-June.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Spirit Airlines will resume flights from Arnold Palmer Regional Airport to Orlando, Fla., on Sept. 10, reversing a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":230773,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[139,141,140],"class_list":{"0":"post-230772","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-orlando","8":"tag-orlando","9":"tag-orlando-headlines","10":"tag-orlando-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230772"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230772\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/230773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}