Originally Posted by
EricR111
The other thing I am wondering about is if this means a new Indigo strategy away from primary airports - would they switch services, for example, from Fort Myers to Punta Gorda, from Orlando to Sanford, and from Tampa to Clearwater.
Also, down the road, is this an indication that they will go into places like GYY (and exit MDW) as well as BED or ISP (which may lose its WN service after 15 years).
Anything can happen and while what you suggest if surely possible, I don't think it is very likely.
The guiding model for both TTN and ILG is that as tertiary airports the flights are to primary airports. TTN-UST surely changes that - a tertiary airport to a tertiary airport - and if they can pull it off it is a brilliant move.
But Frontier has tried other secondary/tertiary airports before and they haven't worked. COS didn't work as an alternate for DEN, LGB didn't work as an alternate for LAX, RFD didn't work as alternate for MDW/ORD and I would shiver at the idea of GYY as an alternate for anywhere.
SFB is an Allegiant stronghold and as such the choices are more limited - Allegiant may have started to change its own model and is now flying CVG-SFB making a potential CVG-MCO less attractive to Frontier.
Frontier once flew DEN-JAX (as a red-eye) and the loads were excellent. UST would give it some of that (plus some of nearby Daytona Beach with eight million visitors a year) and has the benefit, as Frontier has said, being a very cheap airport.
So if anything, I suspect that this route may be a way of testing the waters at UST, and if it works I suspect (only suspect) that the next move may be to test a primary airport to/from UST - RDU-UST or even, in season at least, DEN-UST?