PORTLAND – A coalition of business and airport officials has launched a grass-roots effort to recruit an airline to begin nonstop jet service between Portland and Florida, but industry analysts say the group faces a long, uphill battle.

“We currently have excellent service to Florida, but it’s connecting service,” said Jeffrey Schultes, manager of Portland International Jetport. “We’d like direct service to Florida, but we’re in competition with a lot of U.S. cities trying to do the same thing.”

To bolster their case, jetport officials note that an estimated 226,150 people a year, or 21 percent of all outbound jetport passengers, are headed for Florida.

Officials also are encouraged by a new campaign by Boston’s Logan International Airport to ease congestion by urging travelers to use regional airports, such as Portland’s.

But experts say there may be little chance, at least in the short term, that a small airport can secure the nonstop link to the Sunshine State. The passenger volume would have to be high, and the fares would have to be cheap enough to offset competing flights that make brief stops along the way.

Chamber of commerce and jetport officials have begun surveying about 2,600 businesspeople in the area to see how often they fly to Florida, and whether they are willing to buy advance tickets or a guaranteed number of tickets.

They plan to compile the survey results this spring and share them with airline officials to try to get at least one daily nonstop flight.

“I think there would be a tremendous demand,” said W. Godfrey Wood, president of the Greater Portland Chambers of Commerce. “What we want to do is quantify it, so we can prove it to the airline folks.”

Direct flights would be more expensive than those with a connecting stop, and some question how many travelers would pay the additional cost.

Passengers also say that if, say, nonstop service were offered initially to one Florida city, many travelers would still have to make connecting flights to other parts of Florida.

“Changing planes in Orlando would be no different than changing planes in Atlanta,” said Bill Gannon, a retired federal school administrator who divides his time between Limerick and Fort Myers, Fla.

Most of the passengers who fly from Portland to Florida go to Orlando, Tampa, Fort Lauderdale and Fort Myers.

Stephen Hirshon, a business analyst who is vice president of Maine Securities Inc. in Portland, said that if the Portland airport hopes to attract nonstop Florida flights, fares would have to be more competitive in order to attract people who also could fly from Manchester, N.H.

“It’s very odd that we have a large number of airlines traveling in and out of Portland, for its size, but there is no price competition,” Hirshon said.