MIAMI — JetBlue is starting today its service from Fort Lauderdale to Quito, Ecuador. The South American country becomes the 22^nd country served by the New York-based airline, which comes to compete with Ecuadorean carrier Tame in the route.“Quito is one of the fastest growing destinations in Latin America and a world-class tourism destination. We are thrilled to bring our award-winning service and low fares to this underserved market,” said Dave Clark, vice president network planning at JetBlue.Flights from Ft. Lauderdale will be served by the JetBlue's 150-seat Airbus A320-200, and will depart at 19:00 local, with arrival to Quito at 22:30. Departures from Quito will be at midnight with an early arrival to Ft. Lauderdale at 05:17, (all local times.) Although the flight will primarily serve to an ever growing O&D traffic between South America and Florida, the schedule is flexible enough to allow connections to JetBlue’s network.“JetBlue will soon offer more than 100 daily flights to destinations across our network. 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” Clark said.From Fort Lauderdale, JetBlue also offers direct services to Bogotá, Cartagena and Medellin in Colombia, Lima in Peru and to Mexico City. Quito is the fifth Latin American destination of the low-cost carrier.“The arrival of JetBlue will have a positive impact on the development of tourism from and to the United States and it will offer Ecuadorian passengers greater connectivity from Fort Lauderdale” said said Andrew O'Brian, president and CEO of Corporación Quiport, the concessionaire of Quito’s Mariscal Sucre International Airport. Since its inauguration in 2013, the new Quito International Airport has served in average more than five million passengers per year.