Four months after the announcement of the addition of a direct flight from San Luis Obispo to San Diego, passengers zipped up their luggage Tuesday in preparation for a warm supper time setting.
The flight, which takes 1 hour and 7 minutes, was set to depart Tuesday just after 2 p.m.
The SoCal-bound vessel can carry up to 76 people and, as of Monday evening, there were limited seats available for Tuesday's inaugural flight.
"That's a large number of passengers that have the potential through the year, it can increase our seat numbers quite a bit," San Luis Obispo County Regional Airport Deputy Dir. Craig Piper said. "But it's all based on the use by the community as well as tourists who may be coming to the area."
The SLO to San Diego connection will be operating on a once-daily basis and marks the eighth direct flight to and from San Luis Obispo.
"For San Diego, there's a lot of tourism, whether it's from here to there," Piper said. "Obviously, we want to bring people in, the community wants to bring people in and spend dollars here. There's also parents, there kids go to Cal Poly. so that gives them the opportunity to be able to go back and forth much easier than driving."
SBP now offers a straight shot to San Francisco, Los Angeles, Dallas, Phoenix, Seattle, Denver, and most recently, Las Vegas.
According to its report, the SLO Co. Regional Airport saw the greatest number of passengers in October when it launched the direct to Las Vegas flight.
That month, over 49,000 people flew in and out of SLO.
The next direct flight on the horizon for San Luis Obispo passengers is one with service to and from Portland, which begins in June.
