Air Canada to fly bigger jets into Sarasota-Bradenton airport

MANATEE -- One of Canada's budget-fare airlines is setting up to carry as many Toronto residents to Bradenton and Sarasota as it can this winter to compete with another budget airline operating out of the land of the maple leaf.

Responding to WestJet's announcement in July of twice-weekly flights from Toronto to Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport during the peak tourist season, Air Canada Rouge is putting a bigger aircraft on for a portion of its daily peak-season service.

From Feb. 1 to April 30, the airline will fly an Airbus A-321 into SRQ International. Capable of carrying up to 200 passengers, the aircraft will be the largest aircraft providing service to SRQ, said Mark Stuckey, the airport's vice president of special projects and development. The airline has previously flown an A-319, which holds 144 passengers. That aircraft will service the remainder of Air Canada Rouge's year-round flights to SRQ.

The larger aircraft represents a 43 percent increase in available seats aboard Air Canada Rouge flights for that period of time.

WestJet, which is based in Calgary, Alberta, begins twice-weekly service to the airport on Dec. 18. This is the first time WestJet has provided service to SRQ.

The first seasonal increase in flights to SRQ began on Oct. 1 when JetBlue began its winter daily flights between the airport and Boston. Other regular seasonal flights starting in December include routes to Chicago, Newark and Detroit. In February, United Airlines starts a third weekly flight to Chicago, while Delta expands service to the JFK and LaGuardia airports in New York.

Fredrick "Rick" Piccolo, the airport's CEO, said the addition of passenger capacity aboard Air Canada Rouge brings expected total passenger traffic at SRQ back to what it was three years ago, before carrier AirTran discontinued flights to and from the airport.

Piccolo said the airport has been gaining passengers since AirTran left. Passenger volumes are up 13 percent over the past three years. Air traffic increased by 1 percent nationally during the same period, he said.

Between October 2014 and October 2015, just over 1 million passengers traveled through SRQ. The total reflects an increase of about 16,000 over the previous year, according to airport figures.

Matt M. Johnson, Herald business reporter, can be reached at 941-745-7027 or on Twitter@MattAtBradenton.

This story was originally published November 16, 2015 at 5:14 PM with the headline "Air Canada to fly bigger jets into Sarasota-Bradenton airport."