Celebrating National Small Business Day

When Josh Pascual, owner of Josh’s Premium Meats in southern Miami-Dade County, heard that Southwest Airlines would expand 30 miles south from Ft. Lauderdale to Miami International Airport last November, he excitedly started making plans for his next trip. He wouldn’t be leaving town though. His round-trip itinerary? Driving from his shop to MIA and back.

Josh receives his premium meats primarily from flights to South Florida by Southwest Airlines. Instead of driving nearly one hour one way, Josh’s commute to pick up his imported meats has been cut by two-thirds to only 20 minutes, thanks to Southwest’s 16 daily flights at MIA.

“Now by Southwest flying to Miami International, it makes it even better for my business, because it's less time than we spend traveling and more time than we can give expanding our business and serving our clients,” says Josh.

Josh isn’t the only local small business owner benefitting from the beefed-up supply chain at MIA. In 2020, MIA set a new annual record for cargo with 2.3 million tons, which was 57,000 more tons than before the pandemic in 2019. A lesser-known fact is that nearly 10 percent of that cargo flies in the belly of passenger flights. In fact, Southwest flew 367 tons of belly cargo to and from MIA between its launch in November through March, along with nearly 300,000 passengers.

That’s just one example of how Southwest is injecting nearly $900 million in business revenue and 6,788 jobs annually into the Miami-Dade County economy.

Josh thanked Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava and MIA Director and CEO Lester Sola for bringing Southwest to MIA during a recent visit they made to his shop:

“I think it's very important that people understand all the efforts that you put into helping small businesses such as ours just being able to flourish and continue supporting our customers.”