JetBlue Airways’ latest South American destination from Fort Lauderdale has lifted off.

The New York carrier Thursday began flying daily between Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport and Quito, Ecuador.

The Quito service is the first of two new international routes JetBlue plans to introduce early this year from Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood as it continues to expand its network to offer 100 daily flights or more by 2018.

“Quito is one of the fastest-growing destinations in Latin America,” said Dave Clark, JetBlue’s vice president network planning. “Whether travelers are coming from South Florida, the Northeast or the West Coast, it’s never been easier to visit Ecuador’s historic capital city.”

The inaugural flight to Quito’s Mariscal Sucre International Airport flight departed the Fort Lauderdale airport at noon for arrival in Ecuador at 4:25 p.m., according to JetBlue.com.

Starting Friday, the flight will leave Fort Lauderdale at 7 p.m. to arrive in Quito at 10:34 p.m.

Airline and airport officials hosted festivities at Gate E10 in Terminal 3 to celebrate the new flight with passengers and crew before it departed. Passengers enjoyed free bites of Latin American delicacies and were entertained by a live band.

Among the travelers boarding the Quito flight was Marie Philemon of Virginia, who was flying out on a weeklong vacation with her boyfriend. The couple decided on the JetBlue Vacations package to Quito because they thought it would be an “awesome” trip.

“It was affordable, too,” Philemon said. “We paid about $1,300 to $1,600 for both of us including airfare and hotel.”

The Fort Lauderdale-to-Quito route will operate with 150-seat Airbus A320 aircraft.

From Fort Lauderdale, JetBlue also offers nonstop flights to Lima, Peru, and Bogota, Cartagena and Medellin in Colombia. It added Mexico City to its route map from Fort Lauderdale in 2015.

JetBlue’s Quito service added competition for Ecuadorian carrier Tame on the South American route.

Tame launched flights from Fort Lauderdale to Quito and to Guayaquil in Ecuador in the fourth quarter of 2014. The carrier however has ceased Quito flights as of Feb. 20 but will continue to fly to Guayaquil four times a week, an airport spokesman said Thursday.

Both airlines aim to provide more affordable options for the more than 10,000 Ecuadorians who live in Broward County to visit family and friends back home. The nonstop flights also help to boost tourist traffic between the destinations.

“For us, it’s a very important milestone not only to the airport but also to Quito [in terms of] improving the connectivity,” said Carlos Criado, chief commercial officer for the Quito airport. “We have been working with JetBlue for about two years to make this route a reality and we’re happy to have them in Quito.”

Quito is JetBlue’s fifth South American destination, and the city’s tourism appeal includes its close proximity to beaches and fishing towns along the Pacific coast; the Andes and its volcanic corridor; the Amazon; and the Galapagos Islands.

JetBlue is the busiest carrier at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood with 22.4 percent of passenger traffic in 2015, airport data show. Spirit follows with 18.5 percent and Southwest with 17.4 percent.

Since JetBlue began service from New York to Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood in 2001, the airline has carried nearly 45 million passengers out of the South Florida airport and is rapidly approaching 50 million travelers in 2016, airport officials have said.

Last year, JetBlue added new service from Fort Lauderdale to Cleveland; Detroit; Baltimore; Philadelphia; Charleston, S.C.; Albany, N.Y.; and Providenciales in Turks & Caicos.

On April 28, the airline will begin nonstop service from Fort Lauderdale to Barbados, and a handful of new domestic routes are also on tap.

For example, daily nonstop service from Fort Lauderdale to Nashville, Tenn., and to Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, is slated to start May 5, while JetBlue’s new Fort Lauderdale-to-San Diego route takes off June 16.

“We continue to add routes, which is great news because we welcomed the record 15 million visitors in 2015 and we’re on our way to higher numbers in 2016,” Carlos Molinet, senior vice president of the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau said Thursday.

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