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New Orleans May Get New Low-Cost Airline

A businessman says he needs the mayor's approval to launch a new airline in New Orleans.

A new low-cost airline could be coming to the New Orleans, but first must get the approval of Mayor Mitch Landrieu, an investor tellsTimes-Picayune reports.

An investment group is seeking to buy Denver-based Frontier Airlines, rename it, and make Louis Armstrong International Airport near New Orleans its second hub.

Investor John Miller has promised to increase the number of flights in and out of New Orleans from 120 a day to 240. The state signed a deal with his firm in 2010 that would pay them $50 for each passenger they bring into the state.

But officials in Landrieu's administration has suggested there may not be the demand for that much volume, the newspaper reports.

City officials also say they've asked Miller for business plans and analyses that he has yet to produce. There's also concern that the city could alienate the other airlines already serving the airport if the new one -- dubbed New Frontier -- gets government incentives and poaches their passengers.

 

Communications manager for the Texas Medical Center Health Policy Institute and former Governing staff writer
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