According to USA Today, a “low fare airline” is about to announce a significant increase in operations at Washington Dulles. The article goes on to say that the airline in question will be Frontier. From the article:
And early reports coming out of Cincinnati suggest that Frontier Airlines may be the carrier preparing to announced a Dulles expansion. The Cincinnati Enquirer says it has learned that Frontier today will announce new service between Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International and Washington Dulles. The carrier will offer four weekly flights a week on that route, perhaps foreshadowing a bigger Dulles expansion announcement by Frontier later this morning.
As a former Washingtonian who remembers the days of Independence Air, a low fare airline’s arrival at Dulles could be a big development. While this is all speculation until the service is actually announced later this morning, the impact on fares overall at Dulles will be interesting. I haven’t priced United out of Dulles for travel in a long time, but I can’t imagine that this will not have some impact. Wonder what United will do in response to the first real low-fare competition at Dulles since the “Fly I” days?
-MJ, May 13, 2014
Just another reason why I love this industry… it’s never dull and boring!
Announcement is live. It’s Frontier 3-6 weekly flights to 14 different destinations. Lots of Florida, Vegas, ATL/CVG/DTW/ORD. They’re smart in going short-haul where DCA is usually expensive.
Most likely they’ll do better than Independence Air cause they don’t have CRJ’s. Also Frontier is not an unknown name.
I’m surprised there’s no IAD-DEN but I guesss 4x DCA-DEN is enough.