NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) – Spirit Airlines officially begins its nonstop service at Norfolk International Airport Wednesday.

Both the budget airline and Norfolk International Airport announced the new service back in October and officially made its inaugural flight Wednesday morning.

The airline will offer nonstop services to Fort Lauderdale and Orlando and will have connection options to destinations such as the Caribbean and Latin America. Prior to services being provided at ORF, Spirit customers had to travel to Richmond in order to catch a nonstop flight to those destinations.

“Spirit has launched with Orlando and Fort Lauderdale as nonstops because we know there’s demand in the Norfolk area for travel to those destinations, but beyond that, you’ll be able to fly to a variety of other destinations through a connection and we are excited to bring that service to Norfolk,” Spirit Airlines Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, Bobby Schroeter said in October.

This new service also comes after Spirit Airlines was bought by JetBlue for $3.8 billion. At this time, the Biden Administration filed an antitrust lawsuit against the merger and said that the deal would reduce competition and hike up airfares for customers.

JetBlue and Spirit Airlines have said they are continuing to salvage their agreement.