Spirit to fly against Southwest on Las Vegas-New Orleans route

Spirit Airlines will add nonstop service between Las Vegas and New Orleans. The carrier will begin flying one daily round-trip flight starting Nov. 13.

The new route will boost Spirit's presence in New Orleans to six nonstop destinations. Spirit's other nonstop routes from New Orleans are Chicago O'Hare, Fort Lauderdale, Houston Bush Intercontinental, Dallas/Fort Worth and Detroit.

"We are excited to see Spirit's growing presence in New Orleans and look forward to this new, ultra-low cost option for travel to Las Vegas," Iftikhar Ahmad, Director of Aviation for Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, says in a statement released by Spirit.

Spirit's Las Vegas-New Orleans service will go head-to-head with Southwest, which offers two daily round-trip flights on the route.

In Las Vegas, the New Orleans route will begin a day after Spirit pulls the plug on its current nonstop service to Latrobe, Pa. Latrobe's Arnold Palmer Regional Airport is about 45 minutes from downtown Pittsburgh and 65 miles from Pittsburgh International, the region's primary airport. Spirit began flying the Latrobe-Las Vegas route just this past April.

Spirit operates 28 daily departures to 19 destinations from Las Vegas.