Vision Airlines dropping Baton Rouge service

Vision Airlines, which started offering flights this spring from Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport to Las Vegas and Destin/Fort Walton Beach, Fla., is pulling out of the market. Vision plans to stop offering service to Baton Rouge July 15. Anthony Marino, director of aviation at the airport, says Vision was hurt by high fuel prices, and the airline didn’t have enough flights to absorb the costs. The airline, which entered the Baton Rouge market in March, offered introductory fares as low as $19 to Destin-Fort Walton and $39 to Las Vegas. The $39 Las Vegas flights expire on July 15. Vision was founded in 1994, offering tours of the Grand Canyon. But the airline branched out this year to 17 Southern cities, including Shreveport, Little Rock and Birmingham. Marino says Vision is pulling back and reassessing which markets work best. “We’re not through yet,” he says, noting that Vision flies to Hobby Airport in Houston, a city where there’s a lot of demand for business flights from Baton Rouge. — Timothy Boone