It's Over: Airline Ending Flights From Minnesota This Winter

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You'll have one less option to leave the Land of 10,000 (Frozen) Lakes this winter to head to warmer climes because this airline just canceled flights from Minnesota.

The airline industry was pretty severely impacted when the pandemic first hit two years ago. With everybody staying home, airlines shuttered planes and tried to pare down their total number of employees to stay afloat. Now, though, seeing as travel demand has rebounded to pre-pandemic levels, many airlines are struggling to hire enough employees to staff all their routes.

As we've been seeing since the summer travel season kicked into high gear late this spring, many airlines haven't had a lot of success. As this CNBC story noted, cancellations due to lack of available staff were numerous this year, which made flying anywhere much more challenging. As a result, airlines canceled thousands of flights through the summer and now stretching into the busy holiday travel season.

And some have canceled whole routes like Denver-based Frontier Airlines did-- and one affects us here in Minnesota. According to this story from travel site Simple Flying, Frontier trimmed its winter schedule earlier this year and canceled over 4,000 flights-- with one of the cuts being a flight that left from the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport (MSP) and flew down to Orlando International Airport (MCO) in Florida.

Simple Flying said Frontier's MSP-MCO flight, which had been scheduled to run 5 times per week this season, was one of 43 'reasonably well-established' winter routes that were pulled from Frontier's schedule. It also cut several flights to Florida from various locations in Wisconsin, as well. Simple Flying also said it those cuts are still in place today, are set to take effect this winter and are likely permanent.

So, if you're looking to fly to Florida this winter, you've got one less option here in the North Star State. (However, did you know there's at least one direct flight to a warm weather destination that leaves from here in Rochester?) And if you're still looking to head someplace warm next year, keep scrolling to check out the 50 Best Beach Towns in the US!

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LOOK: See America's 50 Best Beach Towns

Every beach town has its share of pluses and minuses, which got us thinking about what makes a beach town the best one to live in. To find out, Stacker consulted data from WalletHub, released June 17, 2020, that compares U.S. beach towns. Ratings are based on six categories: affordability, weather, safety, economy, education and health, and quality of life. The cities ranged in population from 10,000 to 150,000, but they had to have at least one local beach listed on TripAdvisor. Read the full methodology here. From those rankings, we selected the top 50. Readers who live in California and Florida will be unsurprised to learn that many of towns featured here are in one of those two states.

Keep reading to see if your favorite beach town made the cut.

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