American Airlines will offer a daily direct flight from Will Rogers World Airport to Miami International Airport beginning in December, officials said recently.

Miami is an American Airlines gateway to the Caribbean and Latin America tourism destinations, so the new route will provide travelers with a connection to a dozen warm-weather options for year-end holiday planning. The carrier announced five new destinations in the Caribbean and two in Mexico, as well as eight new domestic routes.

Oklahoma City is not the only piece in the American Airlines schedule puzzle. The company is also opening nonstop Miami flights from its terminals in northwest Arkansas and Columbia, South Carolina. All three will begin Dec. 18.

Miami will be the seventh American Airlines hub served nonstop from Will Rogers. The other airports served from Oklahoma City are Dallas-Fort Worth, Chicago, Charlotte, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Phoenix and Washington, D.C. The new service announced Thursday will bring the average number of daily departures out of Will Rogers by American to 25.

The carrier has been struggling lately. At the end of April, American Airlines slashed its 2019 quarterly earnings forecast, reporting record revenue of $10.6 billion for the first quarter but a lower level of revenue per available seat-mile, or RASM.

The grounding of Boeing’s 737 MAX model, which was involved in two recent, fatal crashes, has also disrupted American Airlines’ scheduling plans. The company had to park 24 of its Boeings in mid-March and announced they would not be scheduled for flight until at least mid-August.

American Airlines’ Miami service out of Oklahoma City will operate once daily, using the Embraer 175 (E-175) model aircraft. The flight will depart from Will Rogers at 5:22 a.m., with a return flight arriving at 12:22 a.m. the next morning. Ticket sales will begin May 13.

The company averages 6,700 flights a day to nearly 350 destinations.

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