Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport has announced that it will add Southwest Airlines to its carriers starting in 2021. Few details are known yet about schedule and fares, but according to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, SRQ CEO Rick Piccolo expects to know more about both next week. Sarasota will be the carrier's 10th Florida airport, and is also the 10th airport in a list of new places to join the Southwest route map.

"We'll arrive in Sarasota-Bradenton as Southwest marks 25 years of serving the Sunshine State. Our customers who choose SRQ will land closer to their preferred beaches and business meetings, benefiting from our added investment in the growing region between our longtime cities of Tampa Bay and Ft. Myers," Steve Goldberg, Southwest Airlines senior vice-president of operations and hospitality, said in a statement.

Last month, SRQ Airport reported that passenger traffic was 69 percent of what it was in October 2019, with 110,883 passengers traveling through the airport in October 2020 compared to 160,327 in October 2019. Year-to-date passenger traffic is down 35 percent compared to last year, with 1,011,677 passengers using the airport so far in 2020.