Breeze Airways


Breeze Airways is a planned airline in the United States due to begin operations in 2021. The airline was founded by David Neeleman.

History

In June 2018, Neeleman planned a new United States airline, to be named Moxy, with capital from former Air Canada CEO Robert Milton, former ILFC CEO Henri Courpron, former JetBlue Chairman of the Board Michael Lazarus and himself. They perceived that due to consolidation, all 11 major carriers were profitable and had existed 20 years ago and that there was space for a new competitor. American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines and Southwest Airlines carried 80% of domestic US seats in 2017 and Alaska Airlines, Allegiant, Frontier Airlines, JetBlue, Hawaiian Airlines and Spirit Airlines made up most of the rest.
Due to loss of service to smaller markets, U.S. domestic air capacity had remained stagnant from 2007 to 2017 while the economy had expanded by 34%.
To fill this perceived gap, Breeze plans to offer point-to-point flights from smaller secondary airports such as T.F. Green Airport, Fort Worth or Burbank Airport, bypassing hubs for shorter travel times. The airline is also reportedly considering longer distance flights to South America and Europe.
It would offer spacious seats and free Wi-Fi, like Azul and JetBlue, but charge fees for snacks and advance seat assignments, like ultra low-cost carriers Allegiant Air or Spirit Airlines.
To begin flying operations, 60 Airbus A220-300s were ordered, soliciting Chinese lessors to finance 18 to be delivered from 2021 onward. However, in order to accelerate the airline's launch, Breeze plans to utilize used Azul Embraer E195 aircraft as soon as 2020.
On February 7, 2020, it was announced that the airline had now been officially named Breeze Airways. The previous name, Moxy, clashed with Marriott's Moxy Hotels trademark. The airline's branding, such as logo, colors and aircraft livery was developed by the Brazilian airline marketing specialist Gianfranco "Panda" Beting, Azul's co-founder and responsible for creating the branding of Azul, TAP Air Portugal and Transbrasil.
In February 2020, Neeleman expressed the view that the airline would be known as the "World’s Nicest Airline".
While the airline had originally planned to begin operations sometime in 2020, the launch was pushed back by one year by founder David Neeleman for reasons that have not been determined yet.

Corporate Affairs

Business model

Breeze professes that it wants to offer a low cost product - but says it also plans to offer a first class product; so it will not be operating a true low cost carrier model.
The proposals do include some LCC features, but it will not have a single class of cabin and indeed Breeze says it will charge for "what’s effectively four classes of service, starting with an ultra-low-fare product, from which you can buy your way up the ladder... ". Aircraft will not feature seatback in-flight entertainment; instead entertainment will be streamed through the airline's app, which will also be used to purchase flights and upgrades.

Destinations

Breeze plans to offer point-to-point service between secondary airports, potentially including;

Current fleet

As of February 2020, the Breeze Airways fleet consists of the following aircraft.

Fleet development

On July 17, 2018, Breeze signed a memorandum of understanding with Airbus for 60 A220-300 aircraft to be delivered from 2021. In January 2019, Breeze firmed up its order for the A220 aircraft. In order to serve short-haul routes, Breeze has agreed to sublease up to 30 Embraer E195 from Azul Brazilian Airlines, although the total number received depends on whether LOT Polish Airlines exercise its lease options.