By Bobby Tanzilo Senior Editor/Writer Published May 10, 2021 at 6:45 PM

The addition of flights to Milwaukee's General Mitchell International Airport continues as Southwest Airlines adds new seasonal nonstop flights to Miami International Airport (MIA).

The Saturday flights start June 12 and run through Sept. 4.

Southwest is also extending these routes:

Existing Saturday service to Sarasota/Bradenton (SRQ) is extended through the end of October and the roundtrip route will add Sundays through Sept. 5.

Existing daily service to Fort Lauderdale (FLL) will be extended through Sept. 6, with two roundtrips every Saturday through Oct. 30.

The recently-announced Destin-Fort Walton Beach (VPS) service is being extended, with roundtrips every Saturday June 12-Sept. 4.

The flights join Americans recently restarted nonstop service to Miami, as well as new routes from Jet Blue, Spirit and Sun Country.

“Southwest’s continued expansion from Milwaukee to Florida, including these new flights to Miami, provides more flights to more leisure destinations than ever before,” said Airport Director Brian Dranzik in a statement Monday.

“We are continuing to win this new service because Wisconsin travelers are choosing our hometown airport. The more we continue to do that, the more service we will get as the air travel industry emerges from the pandemic.”

Southwest now serves seven Florida cities nonstop from Milwaukee and tickets are available at southwest.com.

Bobby Tanzilo Senior Editor/Writer

Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.

He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.

With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.

He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.

In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.

He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.