A Breeze Airways airplane on the tarmac at Tampa International Airport in Tampa, Florida, on May 27, 2021.
Matt May | Bloomberg | Getty Images
U.S. startup airline Breeze Airways is planning to fly internationally for the primary time early next yr, aiming to win over sun-seeking travelers because the carrier enters its fifth yr of flying.
The airline’s host of seasonal service kicks off on Jan. 10 with a Saturday-only route between Norfolk, Virginia, and Cancun, Mexico, followed by roundtrips between Charleston, South Carolina, and Cancun on Jan. 17, also only on Saturdays.
Other routes include Saturday service to Cancun ranging from Latest Orleans on Feb. 7 and from Windfall, Rhode Island, per week later. In March, Breeze can also be planning to start out Thursday and Saturday service between Raleigh-Durham International Airport in North Carolina and Montego Bay, Jamaica, and Wednesday and Saturday service to Punta Cana within the Dominican Republic. Flights from Tampa, Florida, to Montego Bay start on Feb. 11.
Breeze was launched by JetBlue‘s founder, David Neeleman, and debuted throughout the pandemic, in May 2021. The airline now serves 81 cities, with 291 nonstop routes, and a spokeswoman for the carrier said Breeze is the one airline serving 83% of them.
The carrier has been working for years with the Federal Aviation Administration to win certification to fly internationally, Lukas Johnson, Breeze’s chief business officer, said in an interview.
It’s the primary sizeable U.S. passenger airline to win that certification since Virgin America, which was acquired by Alaska Airlines in 2016, Johnson said.
He said Breeze is continuous its business model of flying its Airbus A220-300s between cities which have little to no competition from rivals and added that the brand new routes are “an exciting start line for us.”
“We feel really confident that it may be an important guest response,” he said.
Fares for the brand new routes start as little as $99 a technique, but Johnson said premium-class demand for its pricier, roomier seats has been strong and that there’s a double-digit percentage of guests who book to a costlier seat the second time they fly Breeze.
