"Frontier Airlines is ending service out of Cleveland to New York and Washington less than three months after launching the nonstops, saying the flights performed below expectations.
It also will stop flying to Trenton, N.J., the first nonstop out of Cleveland Hopkins International Airport it added, in February, on the heels of United Airlines' announcement it would pull its hub out of Cleveland.

Frontier is temporarily suspending seasonal service out of Hopkins to Phoenix and Raleigh-Durham, N.C.; and has already dropped seasonal flights to Seattle. Frontier brings back those three destinations for Cleveland flyers later in the winter or in the spring.

Frontier spokesman Todd Lehmacher said the airline decided to redeploy Frontier's scarce slots at New York's LaGuardia Airport to another destination, Miami.

The Federal Aviation Administration limits the number of takeoff and landing time slots assigned to airlines at heavily used airports in order to manage congestion. Frontier has two LaGuardia takeoff and landing pairs. One was assigned to Denver and one to Cleveland. Both are switching to Miami.

The airline began four-day-a-week nonstop service from Cleveland to Washington-Dulles (and Chicago O'Hare) on Oct. 1. It launched six-day-a-week nonstop service to LaGuardia on Oct. 26.

"Frontier did not give the (LaGuardia) route a chance to grow," business traveler Richard Catalano said in an email. "How does a route under-perform when they price it at $43? Why didn't Frontier price it at $73 or more? (United) and Delta charge $ 536 plus bags for the same route one way."

Catalano said the LaGuardia flights also were not scheduled for convenient commuting because they were early in the morning and not daily. Still, the Gates Mills auto industry consultant said he's used the flights weekly for the past month and will miss them.

"They used gate B1. It was close to the taxi stand. The Frontier flight attendants were always friendly and professional," he said.

Lehmacher said many markets out of Cleveland have performed well for Frontier and the airline is always looking for additional opportunities to expand service.

Frontier grew more quickly than any other airline this year at Hopkins, ramping up from three to 17 nonstops in the wake of United Airlines' decision to reduce its nonstops out out of Cleveland from 59 year-round destinations to 20. Frontier currently averages 9.5 Hopkins departures a day.

It ends service to Trenton on Thursday.

The nonstop to Phoenix ends April 27. Since Frontier only has schedules posted through August 10, 2015, it hasn't yet announced when its flights to Phoenix will resume.

Service to Raleigh-Durham ends January 5 and returns April 30. Seattle nonstops ended in early September and restart April 30."