Frontier starts Tampa-Milwaukee flight from St. Pete-Clearwater

Frontier Airlines will begin serving St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport on Nov. 18 with a daily non-stop fight to Milwaukee currently being operated out of Tampa International Airport.

In addition, beginning Jan. 16, Frontier will introduce non-stop flights between the Pinellas airport and Omaha on Wednesdays and Sundays for the peak local tourism season through April 17.

Frontier is in the process of merging with Midwest Airlines, which currently operates its Tampa-Milwaukee flight in competition with Air Tran Airways.

In November, Southwest will begin two daily non-stop Tampa-Milwaukee flights, which would have created three-way competition on that route.

Frontier's new service in Pinellas adds a second major airline to the leisure traveler oriented airport, whose primary carrier is Allegiant Air, which serves 20 destinations.

"The Frontier flight to Milwaukee offers us the chance to connect to 70 destinations that we have never had," said Noah Lagos, director at the Pinellas airport.

Lagos credited cheaper costs to the airline, the new terminal at St. Petersburg-Clearwater International, and the introduction of loading bridges for passenger boarding with drawing the flight from Tampa that will operate with 135 seat Airbus A319 aircraft.

The Omaha flights will be with 99-seat Embraer E190s.

At Tampa's airport, Delta Air Lines will add two non-stop daily flights to serve Ronald Reagan National Airport on Oct. 31, two daily flights serving Raleigh-Durham starting Nov. 1, and Saturday service serving Cancun, Mexico beginning Feb. 19.

Tampa International, St. Petersburg-Clearwater International, Southwest Florida International in Fort Myers and Sarasota Bradenton International officials learned this week they lost out on their competitive bids for a Condor Air flight between Florida and Frankfurt, Germany.