The ski statue at the Reno-Tahoe International Airport is adorned with a cowboy hat and kerchief to represent the airport's new non-stop service to Austin, Tex.
Steeped in culture and plugged into the tech sphere, Reno is often compared to other cities cut from the same cloth — perhaps none more than Austin, Tex.
Now, the Biggest Little City has a direction connection to the River City.
The Reno-Tahoe International Airport announced Thursday that it has added non-stop service on Frontier Airlines to Austin.
“I can tell you, Austin is here by popular demand,” Marily Mora, president and CEO of Reno-Tahoe Airport Authority, said at Thursday’s unveiling. “Some people say Reno is a younger, smaller version of Austin. Now, thanks to Frontier Airlines we have a flight that is truly going to connect both of these communities.”
The new non-stop service from Reno-Tahoe International to Austin will operate beginning April 10, 2018. Service will run twice a week — Tuesdays and Fridays — on 180-seat flights.
The flight will depart Reno at 5:07 p.m. and arrive in Austin at 10:16 p.m. (Central Time) and depart Austin at 2:30 p.m. and arrive in Reno at 4:17 p.m.
Frontier is offering introductory fares as low as $49 each way, according to airport officials.
Brian Kulpin, vice president of marketing and public affairs, said Reno-Tahoe International had been pursuing a flight to Austin for “at least a decade.”
“Austin has been on our radar,” Kulpin said in an interview with NNBW. “When we would talk to our community and say, where do you want to see us serve? What is the market you want to see us add? Austin was always in the top four or five, and moved closer to the top in recent years because of that tech feel to it and the music scene that’s there. People wanted the flight and here it is — the climate is right.”
Kulpin also pointed to the economic impact non-stop service brings to the Reno-Tahoe area.
“Texas is a huge market for so many businesses here,” he said. “It’s a tourism market, it’s a business market, it’s a tech market … there are just so many synergies that this is really an exciting win for us.”
The non-stop service to Austin marks the second new destination Frontier has schedule from Reno in the past six months, as the airline returned to Reno-Tahoe International with direct service to Denver this past fall.
“This has been one of the biggest asks from the airport,” Richard Oliver, spokesperson for Frontier Airlines, told NNBW. “Even when we started Denver, they were asking us about Austin. So once we saw the performance of the Denver flight, we looked at the number of passengers between Austin and Reno and it made sense to add that service.”
In addition, Frontier announced it will add another day of service from Reno to Denver — expanding to four days a week — starting April 9. Flights will run on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays.
