Frontier has decided to go big in Puerto Rico, adding 8 new routes starting in May and bolstering its already growing position in the market. The airline has had its eye on this market for awhile, but I can’t help but wonder if the JetBlue acquistion of Spirit has anything to do with the decision to make a bigger move on the island. If that merger goes through, this will give Frontier an enormous head start in the market just in time for its primary competitor to disappear.
Puerto Rico is a challenging market, and that could very well be because it’s a challenging place to live. Puerto Rico’s population peaked near 3.83 million around the turn of the millennium. Thanks to economic struggles, issues with access to healthcare, more regular natural disasters thanks to climate change, and more, that has plunged to 3.26 million currently and it’s expected to continue to drop. According to the UN (chart below), the rosiest case scenario has the island losing another 1 million people by the end of the century.
These are all just projections, but they all point downward and there’s little reason to think that will change in the near future. This does not bode well for the island’s prospects, but in a sense, it does create opportunity for airlines.
Sure, there are issues like slowing birthrates, but the biggest decline in population is due to people leaving the island to live elsewhere. More than a million Puerto Ricans live in New York and Florida, but New York has not seen the growth that Florida has in recent years. While New York’s Puerto Rican population has remained relatively flat, Florida’s has grown from about 850,000 in 2010 to nearly 1.2 million a decade later. If you’re wondering just how bad Puerto Rico’s situation is… just knowing people are fleeing for a better life in Florida should show just how dire it is.
The next largest states in terms of Puerto Rican population are in the Northeast, and this predictably has created a route map from the island focused on those two areas. The largest airline in Puerto Rico is JetBlue and has been for many years, ever since American packed up its mini-hub and went away. Considering JetBlue’s biggest presence is in Boston, New York and Florida, well, it’s a perfect match.
As recently as summer 2018, JetBlue had about 40 percent of departing seats in the market. That has been creeping downward with January 2023 at 27.8 percent. Why? Because the ultra low cost carriers (ULCCs) are moving in.
Puerto Rican Departing Seat Share
This is a perfect market for ULCCs, because the traffic visiting friends and family is huge but also not overly wealthy. People would much rather fly more frequently and save money on each trip than save up for one big trip a year and pay more. The opportunities for a ULCC to move into the market were obvious, and both Spirit and Frontier answered the call.
Spirit has been in the market for longer, but it wasn’t a meaningful player in the early days. When JetBlue peaked in summer 2018, Spirit started showing more interest in the market. It flies to many of the same cities as JetBlue, but it does it at a lower fare (if you don’t need to buy too many ancillaries).
Here’s a look at the January 2023 route map for both airlines. Markets in yellow are served only by Spirit, those in blue are only by JetBlue, and green means they’re served by both.
Even where the airlines don’t overlap, they really do. Spirit serves Miami, but JetBlue is still nearby in Fort Lauderdale. Spirit is at BWI while JetBlue is at National. And JetBlue is alone at JFK but both are at Newark.
If/when a Spirit/JetBlue merger ever gets finalized, we can expect the map to… not look much different. JetBlue will presumably continue to serve these markets since they work for JetBlue. Either way, most people who are served well by JetBlue today will continue to be well-served. But with the JetBlue model winning out, fares will have to rise, and that’s where Frontier will be able to strike.
Frontier first went into the market in June 2017, and it hasn’t really put its foot on the gas since then. In typical Frontier fashion, it has tried a whole lot of markets, and some of them have made the cut. But a surprising number have been around for awhile now. Most of these markets are in the typical Northeast/Florida region, but Atlanta and Raleigh-Durham are in the mix as well. So Frontier is clearly willing to push those boundaries.
Now it’s adding some less likely suspects. From San Juan, it will now fly Baltimore, Chicago/Midway, Cleveland, Dallas-Fort Worth, Detroit… and Cancun. With the exception of Cancun, the other markets are larger cities that have decent Puerto Rican population sizes. Looking at a 2010 list of the top US communities by Puerto Rican population, Chicago is third, Boston is tenth, and Cleveland is twelfth.
Here’s how the route map looks. Red cities are already flying while green are new ones.
Note that Orlando and Tampa look new, but those are already served from San Juan. Orlando will now get Ponce service — the first by Frontier in that city — while Tampa gains Aguadilla.
The moves from San Juan punch deeper into parts of the country with fewer ties to Puerto Rico, and that could be more about tourism than anything. As with most Frontier efforts, I imagine some routes will work and others will not. But this does help Frontier position itself to easily swoop in and start taking traffic away from Spirit if it becomes JetBlue and fares rise.
26 comments on “Frontier Makes a Move on Puerto Rico”
“Puerto Rico is a challenging market, and that could very well be because it’s a challenging place to live. Puerto Rico’s population peaked near 3.83 million around the turn of the millennium. Thanks to economic struggles, issues with access to healthcare, more regular natural disasters thanks to climate change, and more, that has plunged to 3.26 million currently and it’s expected to continue to drop. According to the UN (chart below), the rosiest case scenario has the island losing another 1 million people by the end of the century.”
I believe as climate change accelerates, the number of residents will rapidly decline especially as they find opportunities on the mainland in Miami, NYC & in other cities.
As for Frontier Making a Move on Puerto Rico, it’s OK as long as both parties are single & available.
“Climate change”? Have you BEEN to Puerto Rico? The best thing Puerto Rico has going for it is its climate (especially winter climate) and that won’t meaningfully change in anyone’s lifetime. In contrast, Puerto Rico has hundreds of other very REAL human-caused problems that will likely lead to further population loss. Just like California, but magnified, because California has bad government, but many other advantages that Puerto Rico doesn’t have (like a large well educated elite class).
What is the leisure market like to PR? Is this all for the benefit of natives and expats going to and fro? I may be the exception, but I’ve been to PR many times as a tourist: beautiful beaches, nature, culture and people.
David – It exists, but it should be stronger than it is. Still, the VFR traffic is the driver.
Surprised to see no LGA flights. Even if beyond perimeter, would think a a Spirit or Frontier would do Saturday only flights or something like that.
I recall that B6 was granted a perimeter exception for the DCA flight in the last round of granting those.
Bill – I thought the same thing. Yet another example of the folly of the LGA perimeter rule in the first place, in my humble opinion.
Bill – Spirit did fly that once weekly from Apr 2021 until Jun 2022, but it has not been in the schedule since then.
Anecdotally…. We rented a house in PR 5 or 6 years ago, and after we arrived we went looking for local fruit and vegetables and were very surprised to find no road-side stands. Eventually, we stopped to ask where locals buy their produce and were astounded by the answer? Walmart! Clearly, the locals had been driven out of their small businesses in the name of greater variety, better prices, consistent quality, etc. It is a beautiful island, with lots of genuinely friendly people, but “big business”, political games and corruption have all taken a toll. In the name of “progress”? Very sad!
Puerto Rico has so much potential as an even stronger tourism market than it has been historically but not surprisingly, our government officials continue to put PR at a disadvantage. We need to eliminate the Jones Act for PR. This increases the cost of goods substantially such that even high priced Caribbean islands have cheaper basic goods than PR. It’ll be interesting to see if this population reduction ultimately leads to a strong independence movement in PR.
Chris – I think you may be correct about the Jones Act. If not outright elimination, certainly some type of significant modification.
However, I see the decline in population with the concurrent “diaspora” to the mainland U.S. doing just the opposite and actually strengthening the argument in Puerto Rico for statehood, or if not then a retention of “Associated Commonwealth” status. Given how many friends and relatives I have living there, I can tell you that the appetite for full-on independence is much shallower than even I thought it was just a few years ago.
Interesting stuff – hadn’t thought about the Jones Act implications!
Completely agree. My preference would be for full statehood but I suspect a certain party in Congress would be reluctant to support that, especially given how all but 16 Republicans voted against the Puerto Rico Status Act that allows them to vote on statehood, independence or free association (not to mention the fact that it has no chance in the Senate). I understand why independence wouldn’t be in their best interest but if you refuse to give them a vote on statehood, at least allow them to develop a competitive economy.
The Jones Act harms Puerto Rico and should be repealed. But independence for Puerto Rico would be a disaster for Puerto Rico, and I’m sure most Puerto Ricans understand this. No sane Puerto Rican would want to lose their US citizenship. I expect the status quo to continue indefintely, as there is no realistic possibility for statehood — absent a HUGE Democratic majority in Congress and a Democratic President, who theoretically could try a craven political move to increase the number of Democratic Senators. Puerto Rico should never be a state, as it is NOTHING like any of the 50 other states, both economically and culturally.
*glares at iahphx in Hawaiian*
WN seemed to have some grand plans for PR before the MAX grounding. There was even talk of adding services from BQN and PSE to FLL and building a mini connecting center to offer flights further deep into South America. If they ever get their foreign currency issues fixed.
WN pilot shortage should be gone by March in addition they have quite a few idle and new aircraft coming in the next few months . I wonder if they too will respond to F9 advances?
WN has done several seasonal increases over the years from SJU it will be interesting to see if they do anything.
WN’s current nonstop routes into SJU almost seem calculated not to go into the densest part of the visiting-friends-&-relatives market.
They have three Florida destinations (MCO, FLL, TPA). Of those, one would be called a hub by any other airline, and another a “focus city” — i.e., connecting points. Similarly with most of their other nonstops: BWI, MDW, HOU are “hubs” and BNA a focus city.
That said, I have no idea what STL is doing in the destination mix.
why? all they do is mooch off us
‘just knowing people are fleeing for a better life in Florida should show just how dire it is.’
Boy, was that a slam on Puerto Rico or a slam on Florida? Last time I checked, lots of people from lots of places felt like the overall situation in Florida was more appealing than a lot of other places.
(Nope, I don’t live in Florida)
I’m a little shocked there hasn’t been an effort to rename Frontier because 6 people and a bison are offended by that name as well.
Frontier must think the demand is there. Go to the website, and an ad shows up on the screen offering SJU entry fares. Quick summer search out of DTW shows nothing less than $388 r/t, before ancillaries. Most days are $400+ That’s likely over $500 for nearly 5 hours in a 28 inch pitch. I can’t see that number on a ULCC.
I would love to know how much of this is based on VFR traffic vs. tourism demand.
PR already has a large tourism industry, but statistically it’s still “under-developed” relative to other major Caribbean destinations like Cancun, Punta Cana, and Nassau. It still has a lot of potential tourism market share it could capture, but it will require a combination of additional development and better marketing to get it to the front of Americans’ minds when they think “I want to go somewhere warm”.
I’m not sure about this, these markets frontier is providing can’t seem to hold for too long, and plus their mostly few times a week with 1x daily. Jetblue goes to the main PR diaspora markets with multiple flights. Just JFK-SJU on a random day this week has Jetblue flying 6x a day. Thats a huge amount of seats to hold a big market share of seats in the market that will undoubtedly be a long lasting placeholder. From south florida jetblue does 4x a day just from FLL, and F9 does 2x sometimes not daily from MIA. So yes it looks like F9 has a bunch of dots but the map from PR, but market share hands down is on the side of jetblue cause they serve the markets that actually stick, and where they want to go. Also I live in the NYC area and know alot of friends from PR. They LOVE LOVE LOVE Jetblue, no matter how much it costs. Yes sometimes they will bite the bullet and hop on spirit, or whatever less costly option if they need to, but the go to is Jetblue. Frontier won’t be grabbing that type of loyalty especially to the midwest markets that have a slim market to PR. So good luck F9, I’m sure they will do OK but long term those markets aren’t much of a prize to really be a big presence in PR. IMO
Who are they targeting with the CUN flights? People who missed their cruise ship and need to meet it at the next stop? Or tourists fleeing from a hurricane who want to continue their vacation in a warm spot?
Oliver – I feel like there’s some weird routing reason here. The flight leaves CUN at 907a and arrives SJU at 105p. The return leaves at 449p and arrives 659p. I assume this is just two different aircraft that can be routed through and somehow save the airline money.
“If you’re wondering just how bad Puerto Rico’s situation is… just knowing people are fleeing for a better life in Florida should show just how dire it is.”
Writing like this is what makes Cranky’s blog the best on the web.
Agreed!!!
Cranky for President!!!
“If you’re wondering just how bad Puerto Rico’s situation is… just knowing people are fleeing for a better life in Florida should show just how dire it is.”
I think I would rather live in Puerto Rico than California ANY day,
Both destinations have huge self-inflicted problems that are causing population loss, but for most Americans, living in California would still be a paradise compared to living in Puerto Rico. The economic situation in Puerto Rico is far, far worse.