A Breeze Airways plane traveling to Fort Myers, Florida, taxis to a runway at the Portland International Jetport on April 29. Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer

Breeze Airways is adding a new nonstop route from Portland to Sarasota, Florida, this fall.

Beginning Nov. 20, the airline will operate flights from Portland International Jetport to Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

Breeze already operates flights from the jetport to four locations in Florida: Fort Myers, Orlando, Tampa and Jacksonville.

Gareth Edmondson-Jones, a spokesman for Breeze, said flights out of both Florida and Portland are in high demand.

“Every year, we add more and more service out of Florida, and it always does very well,” Edmondson-Jones said in an interview. “Basically, in summer, everyone wants to go to Portland. In winter, everyone wants to go to Florida. All the Portlanders leave in winter and all the tourists arrive in summer, so it’s a really strong market year-round.”

Sarasota is the fourth route from Portland the budget airline has announced this year. Breeze began service to Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, and Jacksonville, Florida, on May 24 and to Westchester-White Plains, New York, on June 20.

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Sarasota will be the 11th destination for Breeze out of Portland.

Edmondson-Jones said the airline keeps expanding in Portland because the current routes are very popular, adding that Breeze may make service between Portland and Sarasota more frequent if the twice-a-week flights are popular.

“(Portland) just does incredibly well,” Edmondson-Jones said. “The demand is there. … We’re always growing and expanding, so while we’ll start a route like this on Wednesdays and Saturdays, when those flights fill up, we’ll add, for example, Mondays and Fridays.”

The low-cost carrier, founded in 2018 and launched in 2021, focuses on creating routes between small airports in the U.S.

Paul Bradbury, director of the jetport, applauded the new route in a news release Wednesday.

“We are thrilled to add Sarasota to our list of non-stop Breeze destinations,” Bradbury said. “Breeze has been an incredible partner adding 10 destinations in a little over one year. We are grateful for their continued investment in our market.”

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