MIA kicks off busy month of winter route launches

• New routes and two new airlines to Miami

A busy month of new flights at Miami International Airport kicked off on December 8, when Avianca launched three weekly flights to Bucaramanga, Colombia, and four weekly flights to Pereira, Colombia from MIA, followed by the airline beginning two weekly Santa Marta-Miami flights on December 10. Bucaramanga and Santa Marta mark two new routes for MIA and bring the airport’s total number of nonstop destinations in Colombia to nine – the most in its history. While the Bucaramanga and Santa Marta routes are served exclusively by Avianca at MIA, the Miami-Pereira route is also served by American Airlines. Colombia was MIA’s busiest international market pre-pandemic, with 1.5 million total passengers in 2019.

The flurry of new air service will continue on December 13, when Dominican airline Sky High launches Miami service with four weekly flights to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Sky High will operate the Santo Domingo-Miami service with Embraer E190 aircraft seating 97 passengers. Miami will be the first U.S. route and 15^th overall for the airline, which was founded in 2012. At one million travelers in 2019, the Dominican Republic was MIA’s 6^th busiest international market pre-pandemic and continues to be one of the airport’s most-served destinations, with Sky High becoming the sixth passenger airline flying between the country and MIA.

On December 15, French low-cost carrier French bee will enter the South Florida market and become the only airline with nonstop service between Paris-Orly Airport and MIA when it begins three weekly flights. Miami will be the 3^rd U.S. route and 7^th route worldwide for French bee, which began operating in 2016. In addition to Paris-Orly, passengers can fly to Paris Charles De Gaulle Airport from MIA with American Airlines and Air France. French bee will also become the 11^th low-cost carrier at MIA, joining Frontier Airlines, GOL, JetBlue Airways, SKY Airline Peru, Southwest Airlines, Spirit Airlines, Sunwing, Viva Air, Volaris, and WestJet.

On December 17, Brazilian low-cost carrier GOL will bring Manaus service back to MIA with two weekly flights, giving MIA a total of five nonstop destinations in Brazil: Brasilia; Fortaleza; Manaus; Rio de Janeiro; and Sao Paulo. On the same day, Air Canada will launch nonstop Miami-Vancouver service three times a week, giving MIA its longest North American route and its largest unserved North American market. Vancouver will also join Montreal and Toronto as MIA’s third Canadian destination and provide another connection point to long-range destinations like Australia and New Zealand.

The new routes will bring the total number of nonstop destinations served at MIA to 176, which is nine more than the 167 routes the airport served in December 2019 during its previous record year for passenger traffic. MIA has already matched its 2019 passenger total with 46 million travelers through November, putting it on pace for a new record of 50 million passengers in 2022.