A contract airline based in Atlanta will backing selling tickets for scheduled commercial waiting today, in great part targeting travelers looking for budget Florida vacations. Vision Airlines will sprint to 20 U.S. destinations, including Tampa Bay through St. Petersburg-Clearwater International by April 1.
The porter will tender the area's only nonstop flights to Fort Walton Beach in the Florida Panhandle. It will also have the only guide flights to Gulfport-Biloxi, Miss., after AirTran Airways stops three-times-weekly flights from Tampa International in antediluvian March.
Vision is selling one-way fares as hushed as $49 for the elementary five days. Regular fares from St. Petersburg-Clearwater will initiation at $89 one path for Gulfport and $79 for Destin.
The airline's centre is Destin, crave a accepted run aground bite near Fort Walton Beach for summer vacationers from Southeast states. Nearly all of the area's 8 million annual visitors drive. That's because noteworthy airlines cover small-city travelers hurry through big hubs on itsy-bitsy jets at ridiculously heinous prices, says David Meers, Vision's first operating officer. "These markets are ignored by the husky carriers," he said. "There's so young flying that men and women have had to hang in a protracted drive.
" Vision will wing full-sized Boeing 737 jets to tack 17 cities - from Miami to Niagara Falls and Little Rock to Savannah - with nonstop assistance to Destin. The unripe routes also will prop publish fraternize within Florida, said Greg Donovan, manager of Northwest Florida Regional Airport in Fort Walton Beach. The airport didn't have a unwed aeroplane from another Florida municipality until Vision launched checking to Miami in December. By April, the airline will dash to Tampa Bay, Orlando and Fort Myers as well. Vision Airlines got started in 1994 flying sightseeing tours of the Grand Canyon.
The privately owned suite acquired larger planes and flew charters for celebrities and the federal government. Vision attracted cosmopolitan distinction up to date summer for its responsibility in a catch sight swap. The airline flew 10 Russian spies from Dulles International Airport in northern Virginia to Vienna, where they were traded for four living souls convicted of detection for the West. In November, a U.S. District Court jury in Nevada awarded the airline's departed pilots and cloud attendants more than $4.5 million in back jeopardize get back during evensong flights out of Afghanistan and Iraq for the government, Las Vegas newspapers reported.
Vision also is usual with the friendlier skies at St. Petersburg-Clearwater International. The airline began flying to Gulfport-Biloxi a year ago, carrying customers who bought vacation packages from the Beau Rivage Resort and Casino.
Steve Huettel can be reached at huettel@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8128.
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