AUSTIN (KXAN) — If you want to try your hand at the slopes, Southwest Airlines will soon have a new option to get you there.

The airline announced Thursday it would launch a nonstop route from Austin-Bergstrom International Airport to Montrose Regional Airport in Montrose, Colorado, beginning Jan. 7.

The airport is the nearest to ski areas around Telluride and Crested Butte.

The 2-hour and 20-minute flight will operate once a week on Saturdays. Outgoing flights depart Austin at 11:05 a.m. and arrive in Montrose at 12:25 p.m. local time. Incoming flights from Colorado leave at 1:05 p.m. and arrive at 4:25 p.m.

Southwest launched five new routes from AUS back in March: Amarillo, Charleston, Columbus, Midland/Odessa and Ontario.

The announcement comes a little more than a week after American Airlines said it was launching a route to Vail, another popular ski resort in Colorado. Those flights will operate beginning Dec. 15.

Southwest is the largest airline at AUS in terms of passenger traffic. More than 3 million passengers boarded a Southwest flight between January and May of this year, more than a third of all passengers at the airport.

Passenger traffic for the airline at AUS has more than rebounded from the COVID-19 slump. In May 2022, the most recently available data, almost 800,000 passengers boarded a Southwest flight from Austin.